Azad and daughter Aya at the Northern Iraq refugee camp
Meeting “our family” at YVR.
It was a normal Sunday morning in May, 2015 but, unbeknownst to us, our lives and those of many in our community were about to change.
We were listening to a radio interview with a group of Toronto citizens discussing how they could replicate Canada’s Vietnamese refugee programme in response to the current refugee crisis in Syria.
Between 1975 and 1982 Canada accepted over 100,000 Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees fleeing persecution after the war, when the new Immigration Act of 1976 permitted groups of private citizens to sponsor refugees.
Inspired by that conversation in Toronto, we immediately reached out to former Toronto mayor Bob Sewell, the spokesperson for the group interviewed on radio.
Later that month we introduced the idea of sponsoring a Syrian family to the False Creek South Neighbourhood Association and in the fall presented a detailed plan. Delegates enthusiastically endorsed it, not with Association funds but with communication support and a new committee to help make it happen.
The committee [Evan Alderson, Wes Knapp, Kathleen MacKinnon (Regatta), Val Embry and Maria Roth (False Creek Co-op), Charlie Richmond and Susan Wright (Henley Court) and Sharon Yandle (Marine Mews)] set to work on specific tasks including housing, finances, government documentation and day-to-day orientation.
However, before beginning we had to find a Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH) — a group or organization with a signed sponsorship agreement with the federal government. In Vancouver the SAHs are mainly churches. After several months the University Hill United Church agreed to administer receipts to our donors.
For the next step — to find a family — we turned to MOSAIC, a settlement agency in Vancouver and its list of applications from Syrian families in northern Iraq refugee camps. In early December, we learned that they had selected our family of four. We greeted the news with glee and not a few tears of joy and anticipation. Now our planning could begin in earnest.
By January, 2016 we had enough money for the family’s first year in Canada and ample household items to nicely fit out the apartment we were able to sublet at Twin Rainbows Co-op. In February we invited the community to an information night entitled Syria 101 to learn more about Syria, our sponsored family and their current circumstances. And we sought their support and help. Over one hundred people volunteered to help with household items, time, expertise and money.
By this time Canadians had fully opened their hearts to the plight of Syria and the people fleeing that violent war. Who can forget that day in September, 2015 when the small body of Alan Kurdi was found on a beach in the Mediterranean? Families like his were fleeing the crisis in Syria. They took enormous risks and many lives were lost in their attempts to reach a safe haven in the west.
By December, Syrian refugees were arriving daily at airports throughout Canada and we anticipated the arrival of Azad, Helwa, Aya and Pella any day. We were ready. We had the apartment. We had the money. We had loads of people lined up to teach them the ropes and to help get them all settled.
But they did not arrive. We waited. And waited. We lobbied the then Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, John McCallum, held a news conference, created a coalition with other private sponsors also waiting for their families in Vancouver, North Vancouver and New Westminster, and we kept in touch with our counterparts in Toronto — all in an effort to urge the government to speed up their arrival.
Meanwhile, the clock was ticking on the one-year sublet at Twin Rainbows. With no word as to when our family might arrive, we decided to offer the apartment temporarily to another newly-arrived government-sponsored Syrian family living in a hotel room in downtown Vancouver. Rami, Sedar and Lilyan moved into the apartment in April and soon became an integral part of life in Twin Rainbows and the Creek. They lived in our neighbourhood for almost a full year before settling into a permanent home near Jericho Beach.
In February 2017, we managed to secure a second one-year sublet on the apartment at Twin Rainbows, thanks to co-op member Jane Little, the occupant of the apartment, and to the kindness of the Twin Rainbows board.
Finally, in April, 2017, after almost two years in the Northern Iraq camp and a 15-month wait for all of us, our family arrived in Vancouver.
Four years later they are flourishing. Aya is in grade 2 and Pella in kindergarten at False Creek Elementary, both now with idiomatic and perfect English. On June 15, 2018 Viola was born: the third daughter and first Canadian in the family. The family was able to purchase a share in the False Creek South Housing Co-op and continues to enjoy living independently in the Creek.
Although not working in his profession as a teacher, Azad is gainfully and happily employed at Lekker Food Distribution Limited. Helwa, also a teacher, is continuing to improve her already good English and keeps busy raising her three children and, sometimes, other children in afterschool care. She can be seen in the summer months riding her bike along with her girls on their way to Science World or to one of their favourite playgrounds.
In 1986 the United Nations awarded Canada the Nansen Medal in recognition of outstanding service to the cause of refugees. Many of the new Canadians sponsored in the 70’s and 80’s are now our doctors, caregivers and neighbours. With our sponsorship successfully completed, our community can feel proud of the part we played in that legacy.
– Kathleen MacKinnon (Regatta)