From a Syrian refugee camp to a luxury box at Rexall Place
From a Syrian refugee camp to a luxury box at an Edmonton Oilers game in less than one month. That’s the story of one extended refugee family from Syria as they become part of our Edmonton family.
The family of seven, two widowed sisters and their five children, have moved to Edmonton from a camp in Lebanon, sponsored by a large group of Edmontonians and Calgarians and put up in a house here.
Local lawyer Bob Aloneissi, coleader of a large group sponsoring the family, recognizes there’s more to sponsorship than simply meeting basic needs. The group has to help the family acclimatize to their new culture.
Having them go to this Saturday’s Oilers game is one way for that to happen. “We thought, what says Canada more than hockey?” Aloneissi says. “Winters are cold and long here, so we wanted the kids exposed to some positive things about the Canadian winter. We thought we’d take them to a hockey game.”
The Oilers organization was looking to make some welcoming gesture to the Syrian refugees. When Aloneissi and another in the group, Sam Abouhassan, asked for tickets so the family could sit together, the Oilers donated a luxury box.
“It’s a gesture that shows leadership on their part and signals what we should be doing as a community in terms of welcoming,” Aloneissi says.
“It’s one thing to allow people into our country, but you can’t just leave them there and let them operate in a silo. You’ve got to engage them. You’ve got to introduce them to our life.”
Aloneissi’s father, Joe, moved from Lebanon to Canada in 1957. He started selling dry goods in rural Alberta, then bought and ran two small TomBoy grocery stores.
Aloneissi was moved to do more when he saw the photograph of the dead Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, washed up on the Turkish shore.
“That image galvanized a lot of people,” he says.
Aloneissi is part of a lawyers’ discussion group, including Maggie O’Shaughnessy of Calgary. She discovered through research that some of her Irish ancestors had died trying to come to Canada on sailing ships.
She and Aloneissi now have more than 30 people involved in the refugee sponsorship group.
The sponsorship process was complicated, but the group’s first sponsored refugee, one sister and her children, arrived in late December. A second sister and her kids came one week ago, and one more sister, her husband and child are to arrive next week.
The women are taking English language classes, Aloneissi says. “They are well on their way. We want to ensure their success in Canada, so the way to do that is to become involved and make sure they’re given an opportunity.”
When I think of the Syrians coming here, I think of them arriving in winter. Aloneissi relates one story on this matter: “Their (language) teacher asked one of the women what they thought of the winter. She said, ‘Very cold.’ The teacher corrected her and said, ‘No it’s not very cold. Minus 45 is very cold. This is just cold, not very cold.’ So her response was, “What? Minus 45, I would die. That’s not very cold. That’s death.’ ”
Many people harbour concerns about a massive influx of Muslim immigrants, but Aloneissi says numerous people from Lebanon have given much to Edmonton.
“That’s what we’re hoping will happen right now with the Syrian refugees. In a generation they will be pillars of this society if we treat them right. They’re going to give back and be grateful maybe one hundred fold the generosity that has been shown to them. They’re going to be teachers, engineers, lawyers and doctors, part of our society. They are from a place with a lot of violence and trauma, and they’ve been through a lot. At the same time, they have a lot of family there, so it’s a difficult decision to leave. But what they expressed to us is they left one family and found a new family here. They’re really grateful for the generosity of Canadians.
“They have a saying. They always says, ‘Ahlan wa sahla,’ and the rough translation is: ‘Welcome, you’re part of the family and the more the merrier.’ They always say that when people go to visit. And that’s what I think we should be saying to them too: You’re part of our family. And the more the merrier.”