New York Times - Refugees Encounter a Foreign World: Welcome

While many Americans still struggle with fear around the unknown of welcoming Syrian refugees, thousands of our friends to the north are clambering and waiting to welcome these families with nowhere else to go. Canadians are banding together to welcome these families into their homes, and for one year provide basic financial support, such as subsidizing food and clothing, helping these newcomers learn English, and find a place to live, local mosques, and schools for their children. 


“…after three years of barely hanging on in Jordan, [Mr Abdullah’s family] was not used to being wanted or welcomed. “You mean we’re leaving the hotel?” Abdullah asked. To himself, he was wondering, “What do these people want in return?””


“I can’t provide refugees fast enough for all the Canadians who want to sponsor them,” John McCallum, the country’s immigration minister, said in an interview.” The Toronto Star called them “an angry mob of do-gooders”. 


Groups of Canadian citizens are acting as concierges for their “New Canadians”, helping and guiding them while they set up their new lives, and navigating enormous cultural gaps. There is wide variety of educational backgrounds, from business owners and nurses, to those who were illiterate already in Arabic, making changes to a completely new system of communication even more difficult. 


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