Group matches refugees with new friends
The Together Project gives needed social support to publicly funded newcomers
For government-assisted refugees who feel they’ve been left out in the cold after coming to Canada, a new program is on the way to help them with something money can’t buy — friendship.
The Together Project mirrors the personal and social support offered to refugee newcomers by private sponsors, but without the one-year financial obligation.
The not-for-profit program, which was officially launched Sunday at a fundraising event at Artscape Young-place, is recruiting Canadians to join local “welcome groups” and connect them with refugees who were financially sponsored by the federal government.
“Social support is key to the success of these newcomers. Governmentassisted refugees (GARs) are served by settlement agencies, but some of their day-to-day problems are beyond what settlement workers can do,” said Anna Hill, one of the project’s three co-founders.
“Our volunteers can take them to doctors and dentists, and explain to them what’s Halloween, why people put their masks on and if their kids should participate or not. They are their friends.”
The seed of the project was sown in May when University of Toronto PhD student Craig Damian Smith decided to organize a community welcome picnic for a few newly arrived Syrian families at Dufferin Grove Park.
With the help of city Councillor Mike Layton and community groups and volunteers, the event turned into a gathering of some 400 Syrian newcomers and local residents. “From the academic and policy perspective, marginalization and social isolation are bad for immigrant integration,” said Smith, who studies political science and migration, and did six months of research field work in the Balkans and Brussels at the peak of the European refugee crisis last year.
“We knew a lot more people were coming to Toronto and would be received by the (government) reception centre. Nobody would be stopping by to say hi and there won’t be a lot of engagement with other Canadians.”
A recent study by the immigration department found refugees assisted by the government did not fare as well as their privately-sponsored counterparts, with lower earnings and higher rates of unemployment and use of food banks.
With the outpouring of support of Canadians offering to help and donate as agencies serving refugees were overwhelmed by the influx of newcomers, Smith, Hill and another project co-founder, Kate Bate, saw the gaps and recognized the need for a formalized and co-ordinated volunteering effort.
“Last winter we started volunteering to help the Syrian GAR families who were staying in hotels,” Bate said. “Whether taking kids to the park or helping orient families to the TTC, we realized that friendship goes a long way to help people feel welcome. These were the seeds of the Together Project.”
Since the summer, the trio has tested the idea and matched 30 Syrian families with 30 welcome groups, with a small amount of seed money from women’s and workers with disabilities caucuses at Smith’s union at Uof T, CUPE 3902. The Mohammad family, who spent two years in Turkey before arriving in Toronto earlier this year, was one of the 30 government-assisted Syrian newcomer families who benefitted from the matchup.
“I feel like I am in my home when people help each other and care about each other. The welcome group has supported me in finding this apartment and furnishing it, visiting doctors, shopping, enrolling my kids in school. They brought a wheelchair for my daughter, Aya,” said Jamal Mohammad, a pharmacist from Aleppo.
“I want Canadian friends for two reasons. The first reason is to practise my English. But the other reason is to understand how to act in Canadian culture. I want to share my culture, but I also want to learn the ways of Canadians to be sure I am acting in the correct way in different situations.”
In addition to the matching endeavour and engaging newcomers in their community, the project also has a research component to investigate the role social support networks play in the progress of immigrant integration and settlement.
Together Project is looking for volunteers to fill welcome groups, all of whom will be screened to determine if they are suitable. It aims to match at least 50 government-assisted refugee families — of all nationalities — with Canadian volunteers.
More than 34,190 Syrian newcomers have arrived in Canada since last November, half of them supported by the Canadian government.