Getting new Canadians on track
The Victoria Park Hub offers services to help refugees adapt to their new lives
“The Middle East is not safe.
“I didn’t want to live in the war. I came here for safety and for my children’s future. I think it’s better here,” says Maral Bajin, 42, recalling her flight from Aleppo, Syria five years ago. Bajin and husband Panos Peltekian, 49, travelled first to Lebanon where Bajin, then pregnant, gave birth to twins.
The family then made their way to Jordan, arriving in Canada in August 2015, sponsored by Peltekian’s cousin and the Armenian Community Centre, which also helped the family with the abundance of paperwork upon their arrival.
Since then, the family has been adjusting to the Canadian way of life — everything from busying themselves with Halloween costumes and snowsuits for the twins, now 5, to finding work to help pay rent on their family home at Victoria Park and Ellesmere. Peltekian works as a jeweller, but his hours have been reduced; Bajin has been unable to find work as an aesthetician without a Canadian diploma.
That’s where the Victoria Park Hub, established in 2010 with the help of the United Way, has come to the family’s aid with a new initiative called the Accelerated Family Integration Program (AFIP). Located at 1527 Victoria Park Rd., it brings together the expertise of Wood-Green Community Employment Services, Working Women Community Centre, Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture — all United Way supported agencies — with Toronto Public
“We came to save our lives, but there are so many people who have helped us.” MARAL BAJIN NEW CANADIAN
Health and others targeting the recent wave of Syrian refugees newly arrived in Canada.
AFIP incorporates four aspects to support newcomer-family integration into the community. HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) is an eightweek school readiness program geared to families unfamiliar with the education system. The five-week Community Food Works program leads to a food handler’s certification, and includes field trips to neighbourhood resources and referrals to other social services. Wood-Green Employ- ment Services provides information about the labour market and job searches. There are also settlement support programs for refugees who want to sponsor a family member.
HIPPY Toronto’s program manager at the Working Women Community Centre, Sylvie Charliekaram, explains how AFIP engages Syrian refugees in the early stages of their settlement.
“I would refer to the Hub as a onestop shop, because when residents of the community, newcomers or refugee families come in, we’re able to provide different services at the same time all under one roof. It’s one of the key components we’re running at the Hub supporting the Syrian refugees.”
Bajin has had the opportunity to take advantage of several different services and receives TTC tokens for her trips there. Several months ago, she started computer classes and is now enrolled in the food handlers program, which she hopes will help her find work. She has also gone on several field trips — Niagara Falls and the Toronto Zoo to name a few. Bajin, who speaks Armenian and Arabic, especially enjoys the weekly conversational English classes. She’s also just written an assessment test administered by Seneca College in the hopes of entering a aesthetician class to upgrade her skills. Bajin’s children are in senior kindergarten at the Armenian Community School, and she’s signed up for the HIPPY program. The children, who now speak English fluently, are embracing life in Canada, her daughter enrolled in ballet classes and her son in soccer.
In the HIPPY program, home visitors work with the parent or guardian for an hour a week and in return, caregivers work with the children for 15-20 minutes a day so the child will be prepared to enter school, ready to learn. She says this helps the parent advocate for the children and gain the confidence to connect with the school and learn more about the Canadian educational system.
“Some of the moms we see are isolated and have language barriers,” Charliekaram says. “It’s rewarding to see people who, after a year of participating in the HIPPY program . . . how competent they’ve become . . .” She also mentions the pleasure of seeing how their children are progressing in school.
Bajin says she’s amazed and grateful for the support.
“We didn’t expect people to take care of us so much,” she says. “We came to save our lives, but there are so many people who have helped us. I like to come here because they are like a family for us.”