A group at Ryerson University is hoping to sponsor at least 40 Syrian refugees this year, amid growing public concerns about the international refugee and migrant crisis.
The Ryerson University Lifeline Syria Challenge is part of the Toronto-based Lifeline Syria initiative, and is composed of more than a dozen teams and 160 student volunteers with direct involvement from faculty. The group announced its sponsorship plan in July.
With the help of the group at Ryerson, the Lifeline Syria initiative is hoping to bring at least 1,000 Syrian refugees to Toronto in the next two years through private sponsorship, according to Ratna Omidvar, the group’s chairperson and a professor at Ryerson.
The University of Toronto and the Toronto District School Board are considering participating in the initiative, Omidvar said.
Through Canada’s private refugee sponsorship program, individuals can sponsor refugees by entering into an agreement with the federal government and covering the immediate costs of resettlement.
“Canada is really unique in the world in that there is this opportunity for citizens to directly engage,” said Carleton political science professor James Milner.
The program was created in response to the support by Canadians to sponsor refugees fleeing Southeast Asia in the 1970s. By the end of 1980, Canada had accepted more than 60,000 Vietnamese refugees.
In recent days, there has been a groundswell of interest by Canadians in response to the photograph of a Syrian boy whose body had washed up on the shores of Turkey.
Three-year-old Alan Kurdi and his family were being smuggled across the Mediterranean when their boat capsized in early September, resulting in Kurdi’s and his five-year-old brother’s death.
This is the fate of many Kurds fleeing conflict in the region, said Assan Omar, vice president of the Kurdish Youth Association of Canada.
Omar came to Canada as a refugee in 2000 after spending two years in a Turkish refugee camp. While visiting Sulaymaniyah, a city in Iraqi Kurdistan earlier this summer, Omar said he was told thousands of people had fled the city in July.
Many of these people were seeking asylum in countries including Germany, Sweden, and Canada.
“We’re talking about young people, we’re talking about university students, people who have a degree but don’t have a job,” Omar said.
About 50 per cent of refugees are under the age of 26, according to Abdulrahman al-Masri, the media co-ordinator for the Carleton local committee of the World University Service of Canada (WUSC).
WUSC is a non-profit organization that sponsors refugees to attend Canadian universities. Together, the local committees at more than 80 institutions are sponsoring 85 refugees this year.
While Lifeline Syria is committee to sponsoring and reuniting Syrian families, WUSC sponsorships “combine education and resettlement,” al-Masri said.
In the 2014-15 academic year, four Syrians were sponsored, while nine out of the 85 refugees this year are being sponsored, according to Tom Tunney, senior manager for WUSC at universities and colleges. About $3 million is raised by committees each year, Tunney said.
“What we’re doing in terms of sponsoring students from Syria is something that isn’t new,” Tunney said. “And not just in response to this week’s problem, but in response to a problem that’s been around for four or five years now.”
At Carleton, the cost of WUSC sponsorship is paid for by a levy included in each student’s tuition.
Tunney said WUSC is already planning to sponsor about 15 Syrian students next academic year, and said he hopes to increase that number. It costs $20,000 to sponsor one refugee for one year, he said.
In January, Canada committed to resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next three years. To meet those targets and to adequately address the crisis, Omidvar said Canada’s response must expand.
“We must put visa officers in the camps, we must reduce the paperwork, we must expedite family reunification for Syrian-Canadians,” she said.
