As Syrian refugees arrive in Canada, some may face difficulty communicating with other Canadians due to a language barrier.
Lifeline Syria Challenge, an organization based out of Toronto dedicated to sponsoring Syrian refugees, is recruiting Toronto university students to volunteer as translators and assist refugees with everyday tasks.
Ryerson University student Radwan Al-Nachawati will be volunteering as a translator. He said interpreters will be on-call to help refugees with important tasks, including translating visits to the doctor.
Students also prepare handbooks for refugees to help them deal with emergencies, according to Al-Nachawati.
Discovering Lifeline Syria provided Al-Nachawati with an opportunity to help victims of what he said is the “worst humanitarian crisis” of his generation.
“This is a cause that should resonate with all of us. Being empowered with a platform to use the [skills] we have to help others is a truly beautiful thing,” he said. “I truly commend an institution such as Ryerson . . . for understanding that.”
The Lifeline Syria Challenge also engages students from the University of Toronto, OCAD University, and York University to sponsor refugee families and help resettle them in Canada. Lifeline Syria has pledged to support at least 300 refugees through student volunteering.
At Ryerson, students can attend translation training seminars.
Al-Nachawati noted there are only a few qualifications for becoming a student interpreter.
“Just the ability to speak Arabic, and have some time. And honestly, those are essentially the two things,” he said.
In Ottawa, organizations such as Refugee 613 and the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization (OCISO) are seeking volunteers to help refugees adjust.
OCISO executive director Leslie Emory told the Ottawa Citizen in late November the city might receive anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 refugees by early 2016.
Carleton professor and refugee expert James Milner said Ottawa settlement agencies are making use of Arabic translators to help refugees.
“Language is a huge barrier,” he said. “With medical care, mental health support, with really every aspect in the early stages of arrival and settlement in Canada.”
A Carleton committee recently met with Refugee 613 and offered to put out a call to students and faculty for volunteer translators, but the organization declined, Milner said.
He said Refugee 613 had a lot of offers of support, but getting more Arabic interpreters wasn’t the kind of help the organization needed at the moment.
“There’s a very strong Lebanese community in Ottawa, which not only speaks Arabic, but speaks Arabic in a very similar way to Syrian Arabic. I would just imagine that within the population, there are already Arabic speakers who have already come forward,” he said.
Al-Nachawati noted there are dozens of student translators at Lifeline Syria, but thousands of refugees expected to arrive in Toronto by February, there will be a greater need for interpreters. There are also more than 400 student volunteers assisting with other tasks.
“Everybody is offering their own skill set to this cause. We have finance students who are going around and helping Syrian refugees open a bank account, for example,” he said.
Milner said some refugees arriving in Canada will face more than just a language barrier.
“It’s everything, from the very practical, in terms of finding out where to live, getting your children to school, getting a doctor, learning how to buy groceries,” he said. “It’s very much responding to the experience of exile . . . It’s dealing with the experience of being separated from family and community.”
