Newcomer Orientation Week (NOW) is 3 1/2 days of activities offered at several Peel District School Board and Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board high schools for new immigrants starting secondary school. Activities are offered during August inside schools the students will begin attending in September.

The program helps students prepare for school and gives them the opportunity to make some friends. A key feature of NOW is the role of peer leaders- fellow students who were newcomers in previous years and speak a variety of languages.

"I know what they're going through when they first go to school because when I came here I had the same experience they might be having," said Peel Leader Kirti Tiwari. "I was scared and nervous about everything."

A couple of years ago she arrived in Canada from India and was trying to prepare for the first day at middle school. She vividly remembers being afraid of everything about school. From speaking English to eating lunch, the thought of how she would fit in and be perceived was a source of great trepidation in the days preceding the start of school.

Now as a peer leader at Bramalea Secondary School, the 14-year-old is helping ease the anxiety of others experiencing a similar case of nerves.

"I want to help them in anyway I can and to help them feel more welcome to our school and country," she said.

Mathew Jacob and his family arrived from India about two months ago. He started high school at Bramalea Secondary Tuesday. But he was at the Balmoral Drive high school a week early familiarizing himself with the building, school routines and a public school system that is a little scary for a teenager accustomed to another way of life.

It's all pretty different from the schools in India , the soft-spoken 14-year-old admitted.

"I wanted to know a little bit more about the school and classes to get me ready for school," Jacob said of his decision to sign up for the program.

He is one of 20 newcomers taking part in the school's NOW program. It's the job of 10 peer leaders, two teachers and two settlement workers in the program to make these new students and immigrants at the school more familiar with the unfamiliar, explained English as a Second Language Teacher Natalie Gnys.

The students meet others in the same position and find some comfort in knowing they are not alone in their new and unfamiliar surroundings. Knowing there are others in the same predicament and others who have survived the experience is as valuable as anything else they learn during the orientation, suggested Settlement Workers Jyot Gurdarshan and Kalpana Karkee.

"You know they are in the same situation as you. If you make any mistakes it doesn't matter," said Jacob.

The program was piloted provincially in eight schools last year, including one in Mississauga, explained Louise Clayton, Multicultural Settlement and Education Partnership (MSEP) facilitator.

"This year the program has been expanded to eight schools- six in the Peel board and two in the Dufferin-Peel board," Clayton said.

NOW was developed through the provincial Settlement Workers and Schools Program, according to Clayton. About 260 students took part in August.

"The program is really a collaboration with settlement workers and teachers as well as the peer leaders who have been trained to lead the program to help new students to Canada become familiar with the school, the routines of the school and just to make them more comfortable starting on that first day," she said.

Hopefully they will know where their classes are, what to expect and recognize some familiar faces on that first day.

Many of the volunteer peer leaders were newcomers in previous years and are now familiar with how things work. They undergo four days of training before entering the program.

"It's the peer leaders that are really supposed to lead the program with the support of the teachers and settlement workers," Clayton noted.

Exercises conducted as a part of the program get participants to reveal a little about themselves, learn about challenges they will face, familiarize them with the school and community services. There is also a component that allows parents to find out more about the school.

A program like NOW would have made a significant difference in helping ease anxiety when Tiwari was preparing for that first day of school years ago.

"I would have known more about school before I actually got to school," she said. "I would have been more confident when I came to school the first day."

In Brampton the program was offered to students going to Bramalea and Central Peel Secondary Schools.