Next steps

Wilf Durham participates in one of six committee discussions determining the next steps toward settling a Syrian refugee family in the Quinte region.

PECSyria agrees to sponsor a 15-member family living in a refugee camp for the past five years. What happens next?

It took about 10 minutes for a group of County residents to decide they wanted to help, in a big way. About 100 people crowded into the town hall in Bloomfield last Tuesday night, more than the room could accommodate—eager to answer the call for assistance coming from the four million Syrian refugees who have fled their war-ravaged homeland.

Within minutes they had resolved to sponsor a family of 15—as a starting point. The family has been living in a refugee camp in Lebanon for the past five years.

Early in the meeting last week, PECSyria organizer Carlyn Moulton called for a show of hands: Was the group ready to sponsor this large family? Were they ready for the commitment of time and money? The answer was overwhelmingly yes. With that, the meeting broke up and reassembled into six working committees, each tasked with activities ranging from fundraising and communication to settlement and community support liaison.

A while later, the group emptied out onto onto Main Street, still buzzing with excitement and anticipation. By then, enough money, time and resources had been pledged to commit PECSyria to bringing this large family to the Quinte area.

Since then others have come forward offering to help.

“A dentist was at that meeting and has since managed to get all her colleagues onside,” said Moulton. “So the dentists in the region have all agreed to donate dental care to the family for a year. One of them happens to be a Syrian who speaks Arabic.”

Patricia Bertozzi, of Fifth Town Artisan Cheese and Bertozzi Fine Foods, pledged to fill the family’s pantry with food. Others have offered cars and houses.

“It is all a bit overwhelming,” said Moulton.

She also met Gerry Saleh. Saleh emigrated from Jordan 43 years ago. He built a small chain of grocery stores in the Quinte region before selling and retiring last year. Moulton reached out to the Belleville mosque and was subsequently connected to Saleh. Coincidentally the father of the sponsored family owned a grocery store in Syria.

Saleh has agreed to mentor the father, serve as translator and get him on his feet.

Saleh has agreed to mentor the father, serve as translator and get him on his feet.

“Gerry is a remarkable, generous and helpful individual,” noted Moulton. “I would likely never have met Gerry except for this terrible tragedy unfolding on the other side of the world.”

It is clear that sponsoring this family requires a big community effort. But it is a job made markedly easier by the support provided by Ryerson University’s Lifeline Syria program. According to Moulton, Ryerson offers a leading international community development program. As the suffering of the four million people fleeing their country worsened, Ryerson established Lifeline Syria to offer its institutional support as well as the legwork of its students to assist sponsors navigate the mounds of paperwork and agreements that must be processed.

Since then, other universities with similar programs have also joined Ryerson in the Lifeline Syria project to expand their facilitation capacity across the country.

Lifeline Syria also provides an online donation gateway to enable contributors to obtain a receipt for tax purposes. They also manage the organization’s finances permitting sponsors to focus on the logistics of settling a family in their community.

“Their students get real hands-on experience,” said Moulton. “We will get a couple of Ryerson students assigned to us. To access this resource, we called on Ryerson teachers, alumni and grads who are in the County to formally approach Ryerson to ask if we could be part of their group.”

Kathleeen Powderley teaches responsible communications at Ryerson University. She lives in Waupoos. She has agreed to serve as co-chair of PECSyria and act as Ryerson lead.

PECSyria is working toward having the family travel to Canada in the next few weeks before the baby arrives, expected in the third week of November. But there is still much work to do.

“We have to be careful not to get ahead of ourselves until the paper work is completed and signed,” explained Moulton. “Either we act very quickly to move them while the mother can still fly, or we have to wait until after. But we are trying very hard to get them here beforehand.”

PECSyria will hold a second public information meeting in Wellington on Thursday night at the Wellington United Church Hall.

“People are coming from Lifeline Syria to answer any questions people have,” said Moulton. “There is still room on the committees for volunteers with particular skills.”

She expects there will be fewer large public meetings as the process unfolds—aside from perhaps an update next month. She expects the individual committees will be busy working on their assigned tasks.

Moulton believes this family is just the beginning. She says the outpouring of support from the community suggests the capacity to sponsor perhaps three, four or five families.

“Once the committee structures are in place and working—sponsoring more families isn’t that much more difficult,” said Moulton. “Once you’ve figured out how to navigate the community services, translation needs, school system issues and all those kind of things, scaling up is actually the easy part.”

She says the PECSyria group is ready and willing to do more help.

“We took a vote at the end and every hand went up—so we will see how many families we can raise money for. It is hard to know where this will go.”