Good Evening Everyone,
It is my pleasure to tell you that we have been matched with a refugee family! A list of families available for sponsorship under the Blended Visa Office Referral (BVOR) program was presented to the Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAH's) yesterday. There were only 33 families on that list (the list went to 97 SAH's across Canada). Of those 33 only 7 families were from Syria, the rest were from a number of other countries.
- The language they speak is S'gaw, a dialect of the Karen language.
- All members of the family have minimal education and are illiterate.
- The family is "travel ready" which means that they have already passed all of their medical and security screenings.
There can be no doubt that this family will need a lot of support, both financially and otherwise. We recognise the challenges we, and they, will face in terms of language and culture. Our commitment to this family will certainly go beyond a year, probably several years, though the type of support required will change over time. It's a big task, but we feel that the community of Qualicum will rally around and support this family in every way possible!