Canada s Refugee System

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1 Lifeline Syria is an initiative led by leaders from public office, public service, media and non-profit organizations that will recruit, train and assist private sponsor groups to welcome and support 1,000 Syrian refugees resettling in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) over the next two years. This initiative responds to the urgent need to resettle millions of people displaced by a brutal civil war in Syria. Since the conflict began in March 2011, almost 12 million people half of Syria s population have become homeless. This includes 7 million internally displaced people inside Syria and 4 million refugees outside the country who have little hope of returning to Syria safely. Half of those uprooted are children who have been traumatized by war, robbed of an education, forced from their homes and now live in appalling conditions in exile. Lifeline Syria seeks to emulate Canada s incredible response to the Indochinese Refugee Movement in the late 1970s, when Canadians successfully resettled 60,000 Vietnamese boat people. Approximately 40,000 of these arrived through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program. The Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program is managed by the Federal government and allows organizations (Sponsorship Agreement Holders & Community Sponsors) as well as small groups of individuals (Groups of Five) to sponsor one or more refugees. The sponsors must provide financial and emotional support, including help for housing, clothing and food for between one to three years. This document provides advice on how a Lifeline Syria initiative can be created in other cities across Canada. More information about the initiative can be found here: lifelinesyria.ca. Canada s Refugee System Refugees arrive in Canada in two different ways: 1. An individual and his or her family can make their way to Canada and make a claim for refugee status at a port-of-entry (such as an airport). If eligible to make a claim, a hearing will be scheduled with the Immigration and Refugee Board. If the individual is accepted as a refugee, he or she can apply for permanent residence. In 2014, 7,749 refugees were granted permanent residence from within Canada. 2. An individual and his or her family can arrive in Canada through the Overseas Refugee Sponsorship Program. He or she would have already been determined to be a refugee and are sponsored by either the government (through the Government-Assisted Refugee Program) or by private groups (through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program). The family become permanent residents upon arrival. In 2014, 7,573 arrived as government sponsored refugees and 4,560 were privately sponsored.

2 How to establish a local refugee sponsorship initiative similar to Lifeline Syria Identify an individual a convenor to lead this initiative. This individual must be someone who has the influence and the social capital to bring together both usual and unusual suspects. He or she could be a prominent citizen, the head of big institution or even the Mayor of your city. Identify the people and stakeholders who should be at the organizing table. Your initiative will be most effective if it involves individuals with a multitude of connections and capacities. You will wish to identify people in your community who: have strong political links (eg: current or past elected officials); are knowledgeable about government processes (eg: current and past provincial and federal public servants) have contacts in the media (current or former journalists); represent and are actively involved in the local Syrian community (both young and established members of the community should play an active role); are currently employed in non-profit organizations that serve refugees; and, represent Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAHs) and the existing private sponsorship network in your city (a list of SAHs can be found here: In establishing Lifeline Syria in Toronto we also found it useful to engage a large academic institution to provide information and statistics on past and current refugee crises. Each local community will have a different set of stakeholders but it is important to maintain a good working relationship with all levels of government.

3 Ensure that members of the Syrian community are present and take a lead role. To ensure the success of your initiative, it is important to include the Syrian-Canadian community as leaders and active participants in all of your activities. Young Syrian- Canadians, as well as established people from business, academia and professional life, can help reach the broader Syrian community, and help translate or facilitate integration once refugees arrive in Canada. Begin by contacting local 3mosques or Syrian community groups. At your first meeting, decide the focus of your efforts. Will you concentrate on advocacy or will you aim to bring a targeted number of refugees to your city? Will you try to do both? Whatever you decide, the goal should be focused, measurable and ideally attainable given your city s history and size. For example, Lifeline Syria has set a goal of bringing 1,000 Syrian refugees to the GTA within two years. This is a very attainable goal given the size of our region and the infrastructure available to settle refugees. Our advocacy is directly related to facilitating this goal; (e.g. we are asking the federal government to expedite private sponsorship applications). It is helpful to focus your efforts otherwise, over time, you will be drawn into other areas of this complex field causing mission creep to destroy your effectiveness. At your second meeting, decide on the approach you will take. Your group will need to decide: Will people be advised to bring refugees to Canada as a Group of Five or through a Community Sponsor or SAH? How will refugees be identified: through family in Canada or will you focus on UNHRC referred refugees with no ties to the community? What assistance will you provide? Will you help match refugees with sponsors, or will you only provide information? How will in-kind donations be dealt with?

4 Start working before creating a formal organizational structure. You may decide you would like to create a formal organization to undertake this work. Given the time that that this may take, we suggest that you start as an initiative and begin your activities while you explore your options further. You may seek incorporation later as a non-profit or as a charity. Pull together a list of local influential people champions who will lend their name and credibility to your cause. In addition to your organizing table, you should identify a longer list of local champions who can increase your profile in the public, reach different segments of the community, and provide you with a variety of different contacts and resources. Learn about the refugee system and private sponsorship. Canada's private sponsorship program is complex and you will not instantly become an expert on it. But as leaders you must know the system s basic contours. This 33-page guide to the sponsorship program provided by the federal government is a good place to start: Lifeline Syria is also currently developing a document that will include the answers to our most commonly asked questions. Find adequate funding to hire a project coordinator. This is essential. No volunteer group can sustain an initiative like this. Ask local governments, churches and/or service clubs for seed funding to help establish your refugee resettlement organization. Arrange a donation facility that can issue charitable receipts. While many people will want to donate their time, many will also want to donate money to your project. Contact your local community foundation to create a donor advised fund. A list of community foundations can be found here: communityfoundations.ca/#find_location

5 Be prepared to communicate with the public on an ongoing basis. Regardless of the focus of your efforts (ie, advocacy or sponsorship) communicating effectively will be essential to meeting your objectives. We suggest that your convenor be given some key messages and be comfortable speaking to media. In addition develop a website that: clearly describes your goals; prominently lists the people involved in your initiatives; provides information on sponsorship and links to useful websites invites visitors to share their contact information; explains how visitors can become involved; and allows visitors to donate to your organization. The website will become a resource for answering the public s questions, promoting meetings and bring your community together to focus on your tasks. If you have the resources, a simple website can be created for $5,000-$10,000. However, you can also use free/nearly free website creation tools such as weebly.com, snappages.com or wix.com. If you wish to develop a newsletter, you can also use tools such as mailchimp.com or verticalresponse.com. Organize a public launch. Set a date and invite people to a public launch of your initiative. Your convenor should make a brief statement, and the mayor and Syrian-Canadians should be asked to speak at the event. The event can be as short as 1.5 hours (for example, a midmorning presentation or early-evening reception). Tools such as eventbrite.ca can help you manage registrations. Invite members of the local mainstream press and ethnic media to your launch at least two weeks before the event. Write a press release and send it to local media at least two or three days before the event.

6 Ensure that your convenor is prepared to speak to the media. In addition, you may wish to identify Syria-Canadians with relatives in urgent need of resettlement who would be willing to speak to the media. Have a bank of volunteers and phones ready to answer a flood of phone calls. Once your project is launched, you will receive a high volume of inquiries in a short period of time. Most will be from people wanting to sponsor, volunteer or give money and they will want their questions answered by phone. Prepare to respond and be ready with trained volunteers before your public launch. It will help to also have a Frequently Asked Questions and their answers section on your web site. Start now and move quickly! While the crisis will unfortunately endure for many years, the media coverage of the situation will likely fade. It is important to launch your initiative as quickly as possible to benefit from the attention currently being given to the issue. Keep in touch We hope that you found this document useful. We have written it based on our experience; however, you may decide to take a different approach because of your local context. We encourage you to document your approach and send us any comments/suggestions. We would welcome the opportunity to continue sharing between our communities and to facilitate the exchange of best practices with other initiatives across the country. To keep in touch, please contact Alexandra Kotyk at: alexandra@lifelinesyria.ca.