Roncesvalles Refugee Relief
You can help bring a refugee family to Canada
Roncesvalles Refugee Relief (RRR) is a group of friends and neighbours in the Roncesvalles neighbourhood of Toronto who came together in late 2015 to sponsor one refugee family from war-torn Syria.
To date we have successfully settled two refugee families with a third on the way. And building on this huge success we are now embarking on an ambitious humanitarian mission to raise funds and bring to safety the relatives of the first two families.
These relatives (two families and two individuals) are escaping the persecution and uncertainty they face in third countries where they are living in temporary and difficult conditions after fleeing Syria.
RRR members have met all of the relatives (except for one) via What’s App and Zoom. They have shown great resiliency and humour and are lovely people with a positive outlook to the future. These newcomers will benefit from the help they will receive from their relatives who have settled here with such purpose and so successfully.
Many of us have been separated from family members for well over 18 months during the pandemic. For these Syrian families, their separations have been much longer and only recently changed from impossible dreams to possibilities that they dared to consider. For each family, we can make this one trip - the trip of a lifetime - a trip to make a real difference.
Unfortunately, we cannot submit the paperwork for either of the individual applicants or the two families until we have raised the required money. Your support is crucial to help us reunite families in Canada. Please donate! By doing so, you will be making our neighbourhood and community a stronger, richer, and more meaningful place for us all to live.
How You Can Help
Every penny we raise goes directly to sponsoring and supporting refugees (other than a small expenses for fundraising). We rely upon the kindness of friends, and strangers, to help meet our fundraising goals. You can help us help others by donating to our cause. And you will receive a charitable tax receipt for your generosity (for donors in Canada) through our partnership with Roncesvalles United Church, a registered charity. Donors outside Canada may apply their charitable tax receipt to any income they earn in Canada.
You can donate online, by cheque or through securities. Visit our Donate page.
Learn more about the work of Roncesvalles Refugee Relief, the families it has supported, and how they are doing in their new home. (Our Impact)
About Private Sponsorship and why it works
"Private sponsorship is considered a best practice within international immigration and refugee circles in part because of its track record in Canada. Refugees, private sponsors, and Canada as a whole have benefited immensely from the practice. Privately sponsored refugees have a built-in support network embedded in the local community, made up of people who are socially and economically established. As a result, they can experience a sense of belonging from the moment they arrive. What’s more, program evaluations show that privately sponsored refugees are more likely to enter the Canadian job market sooner and at higher income levels than those who enter as refugees outside of the PSR program.”
The above quote is from "Crowdsourcing Refugee Resettlement", an article published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (Winter 2018) by Ratna Omidvar, an independent senator for the Province of Ontario, and Mustafa Alio, cofounder of Refugee Career Jumpstart Project. The article can be found here: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/crowdsourcing_refugee_resettlement
"Among the many successes have been the Roncesvalles Refugee Relief, a volunteer-led organization and sponsorship group in Toronto, and the network of academic institutions supporting sponsorship known as the Ryerson University Lifeline Syria Challenge. But there have been a lot of challenges for those working together to sponsor refugees. Those challenges along with the program’s needs and best practices are in urgent need of a full and deep analysis if Canada is to keep its gold standard and achieve its humanitarian goals."
The above quote is from Policy Options magazine, an online Canadian public forum for the informed discussion of public policy. The article can be found here:
https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2020/the-cracks-in-our-admired-private-refugee-sponsorship-program/
To date we have successfully settled two refugee families with a third on the way. And building on this huge success we are now embarking on an ambitious humanitarian mission to raise funds and bring to safety the relatives of the first two families.
These relatives (two families and two individuals) are escaping the persecution and uncertainty they face in third countries where they are living in temporary and difficult conditions after fleeing Syria.
RRR members have met all of the relatives (except for one) via What’s App and Zoom. They have shown great resiliency and humour and are lovely people with a positive outlook to the future. These newcomers will benefit from the help they will receive from their relatives who have settled here with such purpose and so successfully.
Many of us have been separated from family members for well over 18 months during the pandemic. For these Syrian families, their separations have been much longer and only recently changed from impossible dreams to possibilities that they dared to consider. For each family, we can make this one trip - the trip of a lifetime - a trip to make a real difference.
Unfortunately, we cannot submit the paperwork for either of the individual applicants or the two families until we have raised the required money. Your support is crucial to help us reunite families in Canada. Please donate! By doing so, you will be making our neighbourhood and community a stronger, richer, and more meaningful place for us all to live.
How You Can Help
Every penny we raise goes directly to sponsoring and supporting refugees (other than a small expenses for fundraising). We rely upon the kindness of friends, and strangers, to help meet our fundraising goals. You can help us help others by donating to our cause. And you will receive a charitable tax receipt for your generosity (for donors in Canada) through our partnership with Roncesvalles United Church, a registered charity. Donors outside Canada may apply their charitable tax receipt to any income they earn in Canada.
You can donate online, by cheque or through securities. Visit our Donate page.
Learn more about the work of Roncesvalles Refugee Relief, the families it has supported, and how they are doing in their new home. (Our Impact)
About Private Sponsorship and why it works
"Private sponsorship is considered a best practice within international immigration and refugee circles in part because of its track record in Canada. Refugees, private sponsors, and Canada as a whole have benefited immensely from the practice. Privately sponsored refugees have a built-in support network embedded in the local community, made up of people who are socially and economically established. As a result, they can experience a sense of belonging from the moment they arrive. What’s more, program evaluations show that privately sponsored refugees are more likely to enter the Canadian job market sooner and at higher income levels than those who enter as refugees outside of the PSR program.”
The above quote is from "Crowdsourcing Refugee Resettlement", an article published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (Winter 2018) by Ratna Omidvar, an independent senator for the Province of Ontario, and Mustafa Alio, cofounder of Refugee Career Jumpstart Project. The article can be found here: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/crowdsourcing_refugee_resettlement
"Among the many successes have been the Roncesvalles Refugee Relief, a volunteer-led organization and sponsorship group in Toronto, and the network of academic institutions supporting sponsorship known as the Ryerson University Lifeline Syria Challenge. But there have been a lot of challenges for those working together to sponsor refugees. Those challenges along with the program’s needs and best practices are in urgent need of a full and deep analysis if Canada is to keep its gold standard and achieve its humanitarian goals."
The above quote is from Policy Options magazine, an online Canadian public forum for the informed discussion of public policy. The article can be found here:
https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2020/the-cracks-in-our-admired-private-refugee-sponsorship-program/
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