Welcoming Ottawa Week
Welcoming Ottawa Week (WOW) is an annual, week-long series of dialogues, cultural and celebratory events, sports activities, documentary screenings, and other fun events designed to convey the genuine welcome and hospitality of Ottawans to newcomers, while providing opportunities for quality interactions between residents, old and new.
Recurring annually since 2013 on the last week of June, WOW was initiated by OLIP and proclaimed by the Mayor of Ottawa. WOW responds to the following two broad priorities of Ottawa’s Immigration Strategy (OIS), launched in June 2011:
- To create multiple opportunities and pathways for all Ottawa residents to connect intellectually and socially in order to achieve a cohesive civic culture that draws on the creativity of all residents to create a diverse, vibrant, and cosmopolitan city.
- To draw attention to Ottawa’s flourishing diversity in order to strengthen the City’s competitive advantage in attracting new residents and capital from around the world.
Read 2013 Proclamation of WOW by Ottawa’s Mayor Jim Watson