How sponsoring a Syrian family enriched our lives
I was 10 years old in 1979 when Canada opened its doors to people fleeing Vietnam. I have strong memories of sitting at my parents’ dining room table with a newspaper open before me, looking at photographs of overcrowded boats and reading about Canadians who were helping the families from Vietnam to a new life in our country. It was happening in our own backyards, even in our own small town.
I asked my parents why we were not part of it.
Sponsorship was a big responsibility, they said, something only a group could take on. A church, maybe. A club. Our little family was part of neither.
Fast forward 37 years to my own dining room table where my husband and I are discussing the Syrian refugee crisis, and finding we face the same challenge my parents had identified. We aren’t part of a church or any community clubs. We had friends, but many of them were spread out across the country, and what was needed were similarly motivated people right where we lived.
It was a daunting obstacle. Every few weeks, my husband and I would discuss a potential sponsorship again, and then abandon the idea. And then I would bring it up once more. Antiimmigrant sentiment was popping up all around — in overheard conversations and on social media. I didn’t know where to look for allies. Perhaps everyone who wanted to help, had already done so.
When I finally got up the nerve to mention the idea outside my own house, it was to my neighbour across the road. It wasn’t a polished pitch: Did she — maybe — want to be part of a sponsorship group that as yet had no other members and had done not a cent of fundraising? “Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.” And so it began. We named our group Longer Table, in reference to the saying, “When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence,” and over the next month our group of two became a group of 10 — almost all of them strangers to me. As we got to know one another, we discovered each other’s commitment to the idea of the sponsorship, our fear of the undertaking, and a deep well of humour. In those early days, each of us wondered what we had to offer. Seeing the nervousness on the others’ faces whenever money was mentioned, one member shyly stepped up to take on the budget. “I don’t have special skills,” she insisted. But she did.
We all did. Another person turned out to be the world’s best apartment hunter. Two more insisted that we all become familiar with messaging systems and online document sharing, educating more than one technophobe. Piece-by-piece we appointed ourselves “specialists” because no real specialists were available.
From there, we tallied the skills we truly lacked. How would we address our deficits? The question became pressing once we were assigned our family: seven people from three generations who had fled Syria and were now living in Jordan.
No one spoke English. How would we communicate?
The father in the family would be responsible for supporting his elderly parents as well as his children. How would we ever find him a job?
So we reached out again for assistance. Know any translators? A dentist who would help supplement the cost of massive work? Each time we received not only contacts, but met people who were willing to give not only of their time, but to become intimately connected to the project. And to us. It was true that a sponsorship was something that only a group could take on. But while some groups were ready and waiting to be activated, ours could be made.
In June we welcomed our sponsored family to Hamilton. The work with them and for them has been one of the best things I have ever done. Through them, I have learned so much about their experience and their needs, and about myself. I’ve also discovered my own community in ways that I never had before.
An incredible web of connections has made this sponsorship possible. Like when an onstage host for a fundraising event introduced us to his wife who became an active member in our group. When the owner of a local café agreed to cater an event and wound up generating strong support through the sales. When a librarian friend recommended a high school student for a translator, whose father then became a mentor to me in understanding Islamic culture and interpreting the immigrant experience — and eventually hired the father in our family to work in his restaurant. When two McMaster students — sisters, recently from Egypt — opened up communication with our sponsored family, translating in person and via text from Canada and Egypt, filling the messages back with joyful emojis. When their immigrant parents invited my husband and I to their home for a dinner of their traditional foods.
Sometimes I try to tally the points of connections, the new relationships, the impact. But I get lost in the network of all those introductions and offerings, because each of our group members has a similar story to tell.
Since their arrival in June, our sponsored family often says, “Thank you, Canada.” I echo that. But I also say “Thank you” to our newcomers. Seven Syrians brought dozens of strangers in Hamilton together and made them into new friends.
Without our sponsored family, I would not have had the opportunity to share in the many varied lives of people already living in this city. I would not have two dozen new friends who have welcomed me into their homes or to appreciate the community that was on my doorstep all along.
This great Canadian welcome is ongoing, and there is still a chance to be part of it. Many of the newcomer families who have arrived in Hamilton need help in reuniting with people left behind. Our own group Longer Table is setting up a satellite chapter to sponsor the teenaged sister of the young mom in our family — let us know if you’d like to join us. If you want to form your own group, you can discover the vast amount of information provided to potential sponsors by settlement experts like Wesley Urban Ministries. You have nothing to lose, and lots to gain.