Month 13. Helping refugees adapt to their new home after a 12 month sponsorship MONTH 13

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1 1 Month 13 Helping refugees adapt to their new home after a 12 month sponsorship +

2 2 There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Colin Powell In Canada, 40,081 refugees have been resettled since 2015, and around 15,000 in the last year. Many of these people are struggling and will struggle after their 12-month sponsorship. Recommendation: Airbnb should focus on helping these Canadian refugees on Month 13.

3 3 Transitional Support after 12 months of Sponsorship Story of the Haj Family Liz Stark and her friends dedicated themselves into resettling Mouhamad, Wissam al-haj and their three children. The family's sponsorship would be coming to an end in 2 weeks and the Canadian sponsors would stop paying for their rent and basic costs. Until then, the most important task of Ms. Stark s day was to take the couple to a budget tutorial, since the Syrian refugees were still unfamiliar with banks and ATM Cards. The sponsor had also been taking care of all the financial work, so naturally the refugees knew little about banking at all. The reason, was that the Hajj family was only able to speak some common phrases in English; they were not near fluent, and this made communication in a place like Canada very difficult. As Mr.Hajj waited for Month 13, he was overwhelmed by how stressful the future looked. The Hajjes had fled Syria and spent many years living in Lebanon in horrible conditions when their children used to work for a dollar a day. Most refugees find themselves between a fearful past and an uncertain future at this time. They face a similar situation during Month 13.

4 The Process 4 A Refugee s Journey Sponsorship Refugees are sponsored by the government or private groups before they arrive in Canada. They help cover startup costs and support for at most 12 months. Arrival Refugees arrive in canada looking for a multicultural safe haven and a new home. They spend their first 12 months with support from the people who sponsored them. Independence Upon the end of the sponsorships, refugees are expected to become financially independent of their sponsors within 12 months.. But, this doesn t always work as planned. In many cases, the integration of refugees is difficult. They may be unable to find jobs due to language barriers. Because of this, stress and anxiety becomes a problem.

5 5 Understanding The Problem

6 Self sufficiency takes longer than 12 months 6 Challenges Financial Stability Refugees generally can t find jobs that will provide them enough income to support their family. The high living wage in Toronto is $18.52/hr, which is hard to meet for refugees in 12 months. Social Anxiety In Canada, refugees are far away from what they re used to. People like Mr. Haj may experience immense stress without anyone who speaks the same language and face considerable barriers to becoming self-sufficient. Language Barrier Refugees cannot learn enough English in 12 months to speak fluently. Most refugees only know a few words and common phrases in English. Stigma Recently, a surge of opposition against the Muslim tradition has arisen. Compounded with their language issues, refugees could face negative pressure in their community as well.

7 7 Recommendation

8 Our Recommendation 1. Partner with Private Sponsors Provide awareness to sponsors through partnership. Airbnb should partner with various sponsoring groups and private sponsors to ensure that their refugees are able to better integrate into society. Refugee Sponsorship Training Program (RSTP) RTSP is funded by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, and works to train private sponsors before their sponsorship begins. Airbnb could partner with them to provide awareness to private sponsors around the ways Airbnb can help refugees through with accommodation after the 12 months. 8

9 Our Recommendation 2. Airbnb Refugee Tool Use the Airbnb refugee tool to place people in close vicinity. As a modification of the existing disaster response tool, sponsors would register their families in the refugee response tool if they feel the family will have difficulty continuing their life in Canada. From there, Airbnb will organize lodgings with hosts with suitable knowledge, background, and willingness to help the refugees specifically. Airbnb will work to organize lodgings of refugees to be close to each other to facilitate community meetings. Hosts will be able to guide the refugees with tasks in everyday, life, but will not do those things on their behalf. They will serve as a source of information. Preserving the mission of Airbnb, the guests will be given the chance to truly live like locals. 9

10 Our Recommendation 3. Transitioning to Airbnb Create a comfortable rental experience The Airbnb experience aims to be more comfortable than the landlord-tenant relationship. During their stay, refugees will enjoy a much cheaper alternative than renting apartments. Fees would be waived for one month ideally, and then increased by case and reliability of income. In the meantime, Airbnb hosts would encourage them to find jobs for themselves. 10

11 Our Recommendation 4. Connecting the Refugee Community Use Airbnb to create a community amongst refugees. With it s network of rapidly integrating refugees, Airbnb can begin to organize physical communities or community meetings among the refugees themselves. Having people who have gone through a similar process speak with each other will lead to networking and creation of friendships in a new country, where things are vastly different. As a large corporation, Airbnb is also capable of providing help to refugees to get the tools they need, either through donations or co-hosting with educators. English and Financial Literacy classes can be held once or twice a week during community meetings as another step to promote integration. 11

12 Our Recommendation 5. Live Like Locals Help refugees integrate in their new country. Using Airbnb's Experiences, Places, and Trips, hosts can take their families out to create amazing experiences in their city. They would be in contact with hosts of other refugees to create an even bigger network and sense of belonging. Fees would operate on a similar basis as housing accommodations mentioned above. 12

13 13 Summary of implementation Steps to take In order for this to become a reality, several steps need to be taken, in four general phases of the developmental process. Iterate/Improve Pilot Program Preparing Communities Refugee Response Partnerships Establish partnerships with the refugee sponsors and educators. Register refugees that need the service through the partners. With the registered refugees and hosts, Airbnb will begin to organize the lodgings of refugees, and in the meantime, identify venues for community gatherings and classes. With all preparations completed, Airbnb can launch a pilot program, incorporating the first wave of refugees graduating from sponsorship that lasts until their agreements with the hosts run out. Through the results of the Pilot Program, Airbnb can determine what aspects of the program to improve and change, and continue to make a difference in the lives of refugees.

14 14 Thank you! PROCESS & DIAGRAMSOn a more personal note... Social Media Resources Hi Jason, About Her We d like to personally thank you for giving us this opportunity to contribute to the refugee Entrepreneurial depending onraising the type of for refugees, but we crisis. People activities always talkdiffer aboutsubstantially exercising philanthropy and money saw this asand a chance to contribute much more with our ideas. That s organization creativity involved. Entrepreneurship ranges in why we worked hard to bring you our recommendation. At first, we called 3 or 4 refugee organizations, UNHCR, and the Canadian Immigration Office, but we weren t able to get much useful information about the refugees specifically. That s when we realized that it wasn t going to be easy. We didn t know where to start. We could figure out how to reach the refugees in their countries, but what then? How could we help? Airbnb wouldn t be able to transport them independently. Sabarish Gnanamoorthy gnasa@utschools.ca That s when we stumbled upon the New York Times article: Canadians Adopted Refugee Families for a Year. Then Came Month From the information we found, we were able to create our existing recommendation. This is something that we think will be a practical, local, and accessible solution. We hope that we were able to make an impact on Airbnb's future decisions. Alex Zhuang zhual@utschools.ca Sabarish andmonth Alex 13