More than 50 people attended a Sunday afternoon meeting about efforts to welcome Syrian refugees to Puslinch, Guelph and Wellington County.
Event organizer Bill Knetsch explained the Puslinch Supporting Refugees project to the crowd on Jan. 10 at the Puslinch Community Centre.
“Our mandate is simple, we have placed donation bins across the township including local businesses, churches, libraries and the township office, to make it as easy as possible for the residents of Puslinch to donate items that we take for granted each and every day, from a toothbrush to a tea towel,” he said.
“With a team of dedicated volunteers we pick up our full bins and drive the donations to a warehouse facility in Guelph beside the Danby plant.”
The group has gathered 15 bins in the last month.
All of the Puslinch donations are being taken to Guelph to be added to the supplies being gathered by the Syrian Refugee Support Consortium to be distributed once refugees arrive in Guelph.
“I hope that we can keep this momentum going and really make this a long-term thought process on how to welcome people to our country, to our city, because it’s not just a one-time, one-off thing,” said Sara Sayyed of the consortium and the Muslim Society of Guelph.
“This is happening around the world and it’s a huge issue right now with so many people from various parts of the world being displaced or even coming over for various reasons, whether it’s economic or as a refugee.”
The Syrian Refugee Support Consortium is a group of organizations and individuals working to coordinate efforts to bring refugees to the area, including 50 refugee families Jim Estill of Dandy pledged to support last year.
In total Guelph and Wellington County are looking to receive about 75 families, or about 400 refugees, according to Alex Goss of the Guelph Wellington Local Immigration Partnership – though few had arrived as of last weekend.
“The community typically sees about 50 refugees a year that will come to Guelph and Wellington County, so talking about 400 is an eight-fold increase in the amount of people,” Goss said. “That’s pretty unique across the country.”
Goss, who agreed with Sayyad that it’s important to look at long-term sustainability, stressed the need to make the transition to Canada successful.
“Often when newcomers come to a community in Wellington County they need to adapt and change how they live their lives, their cultural practice and how you’re fitting into the community, but the two-way street is really recognizing that the community also has to change, also has to shift to be more welcoming to ensure that those people are getting the best start possible,” he said.
The consortium has received many donations to help make the refugees feel at home, but Sayyad said there is a need for household items, toiletries and baby equipment.
“We could use baby equipment but would just like to emphasize that it needs to be meeting the safety standards to make sure it’s not going to be a safety issue for any children,” she said, noting any donated car seats must be new.
The consortium has secured two warehouses for storage of supplies and director Jaya James said the refugees will receive vouchers from the Salvation Army to go through the supplies and choose what is needed. Any donated furniture will be moved into each family’s permanent residence once it is established.
James said the consortium made an effort not to duplicate services already provided in the community.
She said any items donated in excess of what is needed for the refugees will be made available to the community.
“What we’ve been trying to do is fill the second hand stores and the food banks and stuff in town so that not only is this going to be something that benefits the refugee families when they come but it also benefits families that are living closer to the edge and they will have more resources available to them,” James said.
“We want the whole community to be better off as a result.”
Sayyad said the groups are receiving many donations and if there are a lot of excess supplies, the consortium may look at shipping a container to a refugee camp in either Lebanon or Jordan.
“You don’t want to say no to people that are doing this from their heart,” she said. “But it is hard … we’re trying to deal with everything and it’s quite overwhelming.”
One of the major contributors to the Syrian Refugee Support Consortium’s supplies is the Rotary Club of Guelph South and the Salvation Army.
Celia Clark was at the meeting and spoke on behalf of the groups, saying, “The community has been amazingly generous,” but the communication of information is where they’re struggling the most.
“A lot of what we hear is second, third-hand, I’m very concerned that there’s quite a lot of duplication and effort,” Clark said.
“My wish for going forward is that we find an overall coordinator who can keep the flow of information coming accurate information to everybody who’s involved because a lot of the time we’re working a bit in the dark.”
The Rotary and the Salvation Army have been giving donations to the Syrian Refugee Support Consortium.
The Puslinch Optimist Club is also looking to have a part in welcoming Syrian refugees to the community.
Optimist president Vinnie Klimkosz said he’s plans to propose that the club donate any money raised during Family Day events, including a hockey tournament, to the effort.
“We’d like to support to community, the refugees that may be settling here in Puslinch, youth, kids, that’s our mandate to support the young people in Puslinch,” Klimkosz said. “So what we’d like to donate is possibly the knapsacks or welcome boxes that we would put together or put the money up to buy supplies to fill up … and if we do have any families that come here we’d like to present them to them as a welcome.”
Colleen Brunelle from Wellington County Settlement Services also spoke at the meeting to explain what resources the county had to offer.
Settlement workers are available throughout the county to work with immigrants and refugees at a time and location that is convenient for them.
“Some of the things that our settlement workers do on a very regular basis, in terms of what we do get funding for, are general orientations to the community that they are choosing to live in as well as letting them know where their community resources are, non-therapeutic counseling sessions and general information, translation and interpretation …” said Brunelle. “We hold group sessions on topics such as housing, health care, employment issues and discuss things like labour law and the employment standards in Canada.”
When refugees are privately sponsored or sponsored through the government, they are not eligible for regular government benefits through the county until the sponsorship agreement is complete because the sponsor is responsible for financially support them.
Brunelle said the housing department is prepared to take applications for refugees to get on the housing registry list and the wait list could be up to three or four years.
However, refugees can submit their application as soon as they arrive if they are looking for government-subsidized housing in the future.
Visit http://www.guelphrefugeeforum.com for more information about the Syrian Refugee Support Consortium, to volunteer or to donate. The website allows for a donation to the consortium or to individual sponsorship groups.
