Working up a good sweat
Oonagh Duncan’s boot camp fitness camp is raising money to bring a family of Syrian refugees to Canada
It’s a Tuesday morning in Christie Pits and I’m breaking a sweat alongside more than a dozen people during the last leg of Oonagh Duncan’s boot camp class.
She leads us all through the fun-but-intense “Roxanne” workout. You know the song — Sting growls “Roooxanne” and “put on the red light” over and over. When he sings the former, you do a push-up, and for the latter, you do half a burpee. After three minutes and 13 seconds of the Police putting us through misery, we’re all giggling, sweaty and sore.
But the group’s soon-to-pass pain has a purpose: helping fundraise for a Syrian family to start a new life in Canada.
“You hear about these things, and you feel so distant, and now I’m getting Facebook messages from this woman who’s sitting — right now — in a tent (on the Syria-Lebanon border),” says Duncan, a fitness industry veteran.
She’s talking about Ramia, a 32year-old mother of four from Syria who began reaching out to people in Toronto earlier this year, hoping for help to start a new life in Canada with her family.
Ramia’s husband, Mohammed, is recovering from a stroke in Lebanon. She hasn’t seen him in months.
Right now, Ramia — who asked the Star to withhold her last name for safety reasons — is living in constant fear and hunger with her children, Mohammed Adnan, 11, Ghiyath, 10, Sham, 3, and Zein, 2, their life uprooted first by Syria’s civil war, and now their perilous journey out of their home country.
“I’m so blown away by her resilience and resourcefulness,” says Duncan, a Toronto mother of two. “I think, would I be able to do that? But as a mom, you’ll do anything.”
Duncan is among a group of Torontonians hoping to raise the $33,000 the Canadian government estimates it would cost to provide for Ramia’s family for a year upon their arrival to Canada.
Community Matters, a neighbourhood organization with more than two decades of experience helping newcomers get established in the St. James Town neighbourhood of Toronto, is the family’s community sponsor and will help administer the funds.
This summer, Duncan slashed the cost of her Fit Feels Good boot camp classes in half to bring in an influx of new clients, and has raised more than a $1,000 for the cause.
“I wanted to check this class out for awhile, and it was a lovely, pleasant surprise to find out there was something additional to contribute to the community,” says boot camp attendee Diane Der, 45.
Ramia first connected with various people in Toronto through Facebook, including Laura-Jean Bernhardson of Fresh Collective, the Toronto fashion label, and Siyar Abu Hantash, of Canada Today Arab news. She’s been sending them regular updates on her journey with her children.
“She broke my heart,” says Abu Hantash, who has been speaking to Ramia in Arabic. “She was always asking, ‘How can you help?’ ”
Ramia speaks English and French as well. I talked to her through Facebook Messenger in July, and she spoke of “the generosity of the people” she now knows in Canada.
“The doors are close (sic) on my face,” Ramia told me in brief messages from her camp on the Syria-Lebanon border. “My children all the time scared and hungry. The situation is very difficult.”
There are still many hurdles ahead, from hitting the fundraising target, to hoping Ramia and her family can get all the documentation they need to leave for Canada.
But Duncan and her fellow fundraisers in Toronto say they won’t stop until the job is done.
“When I think about those kids, and that mom, and everything she’s doing — I just want to get them here,” Duncan says. Help the cause: gofundme.com/ HelpRamia