Canadian, Global Refuge for World Refugees

"I forget everything painful or hard during my life in Lebanon, during my life in Syria [anticipating completion of the process of  his refugee application]."

Basel, Syrian refugee in Lebanon

"I want them [fellow Afghan refugees appealing for assistance to be accepted as refugees to Canada] to have some kind of hope, but at the same time, not too much."

Abdullah Sarwari, former Afghan refugee, Vancouver

"I don't even know how to say to someone, 'I can't help you'."

Vania Davidovic, Oakville, Ontario

The UNHCR's annual global trends report shows Canada took in 28,100 of the 92,400 refugees who were resettled in 25 countries during 2018. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)

 

Yet Ms.Davidovic has had to learn to say just that: 'no'. She has been responsible for helping 56 refugees to come to Canada since 2015, as a sponsor herself or through success in finding other Canadians willing to accept a sponsorship role. For the most part, those that Vania Davidovic assisted were Syrians met through Facebook, living in situations that tested their mettle to survive. She struggled on her own to sponsor as many people in need as she was able to until it all became too difficult leading her to step away from befriending refugees on Facebook, unable to face their disappointment when she was no longer capable of continuing sponsorship.

The chances of refugees succeeding in persuading Canadians to privately sponsor them are fairly remote. Mostly due to sponsors identifying a specific individual or family and refugees require prior settlement of relatives, friends even a complete stranger living in Canada to offer their help. Sponsors are expected to pledge to raise the required funds, representing $16,500 per person -- and more for an entire family -- along with having to file reams of paperwork.

Still, thousands of people living in Canada find their way clear to become sponsors every year with a generosity that shines a light at a time in history of tightened border restrictions. The United States once held the reputation of being the globe's refugee resettlement leader. The current government in Washington declined to continue playing that vital role. Both the United States and Canada can claim with good reason that each is a nation comprised of refugees and immigrants.

The United Nations in 2019 resettled less than one percent of the world's 20 million refugees. Because private sponsorship has been enabled by the government of Canada it has become a unique opportunity for fortunate refugees to leave their state of statelessness after escaping conflict and oppression in their countries of origin, amid the general knowledge that Canada has accepted more refugees than any other country in the world in the last several years,leading to a deluge of requests filtering through to Canadian individuals and sponsoring groups.

Action Refugies Montreal sees its staff unable to keep track of the many queries they receive for refugee sponsorship assistance. The Anglican diocese on Vancouver Island which since 2015 has privately sponsored over 800 refugees is now in a position where the parishes are unable to sponsor and resettle everyone who writes to them asking for help, as many as five emails seeking assistance being received daily. 

Vania Davidovic took part in the surge in private sponsorship in 2015 and 2016 in a frantic scramble to resettle 25,000  Syrian refugees at a time when volunteers eager to help outnumbered the refugees needing help. The situation has now reversed itself although Canadians will continue to help refugees despite that other refugee crises fail to engender the same level of urge to help others on the part of Canadians as the Syrian refugee crisis had done.

In October the Canadian government set a target figure of 22,500 privately sponsored refugees every year for the following three years. Since 1978, over 325,000 refugees were sponsored in Canada. Professor Jennifer Hyndman at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University in Toronto, speaks of Canadian sponsorship of refugees as "a civil society movement like no other".

When footage of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greeting Syrians on arrival at Toronto International Airport in 2015 was viewed abroad, Syrian refugee Basel watched and cried. "I wished Justin Trudeau could see my situation", he said in a video call from Lebanon recently. He too needed a sponsor in Canada and turned to social media to contact people online, using Facebook pages dedicated to refugee issues.

Global displacement numbers have hit all-time high    CBC

 

Stephen Watt operates a website, Northern Lights Canada on Facebook, to match refugees with sponsors, attempting to help because refugees he says, have "no money, no resources ... no hope". He tries to give them the opportunity to acquire both. Basel found Watt, familiar with handling paperwork for over 100 privately sponsored refugees since 2016. He offered advice and assistance to Jewish Immigrant Aid Services in Toronto, in sponsoring Basel.

 

Professor Hydman's survey of over 500 sponsors indicated that three out of every five sponsors was asked to bring in other refugees after Syrian refugees arrived. The requests promoted the function of motivating Canadians to respond once again. And there are times when refugees who have settled in Canada themselves champion the private sponsorship program. As did former Afghan refugee Abdullah Sarwari.

 

He was brought by the Canadian government along with his mother and two younger siblings to Vancouver in 2019 and when he discovered the existence of private sponsorship he determined himself to begin helping others to reach Canada. He launched a Facebook group in September hoping to attract donors and sponsors to bring his friend Sikandar Ali living precariously in Indonesia,to Canada. 

 

The response was immediate, with over a dozen refugees contacting him with messages asking whether they could also be sponsored. Sarwari answers he is unable to help them at the present time, with not enough money gathered yet for Ali, his friend to be sponsored to Canada.