It’s official: as of late last week, Manitoulin is the new home to the first group of political and economic refugees since 1980 when the Island hosted a family of Vietnamese “boat people.”
The families now here (with others expected to come soon) are originally from a tiny, war-torn country on the Horn of Africa: that part of northeast Africa that protrudes, horn like, into the Red Sea/Gulf of Suez.
They have virtually no English and they arrived here, literally, with the clothes on their backs and, in the case of some, wearing only flip-flops on their feet as they walked across the frozen, snowy ground to refuge in the home provided for them.
The five refugees families that are already, or will soon be making their homes in Little Current, Gore Bay, Mindemoya and Manitowaning, have thrown themselves on the mercy of the people of Manitoulin Island, brought here by an earnest and well-intentioned local core refugee resettlement group made up of individuals from across the Island who, on learning there was an unusually high critical need for communities in western nations to become involved, came together with the vision of hosting families.
Until the refugees began to arrive last week, that is all the sponsoring group knew: they were preparing, in each of the Island communities previously named, to welcome families of seven, or three, or four or whatever had been assigned to them.
The Manitoulin Island resettlement group chose to work with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), which in turn, would liaise with the federal government and bear the responsibility for required paperwork and documentation.
Manitoulin Island communities then, through the group of people who came together from all over Manitoulin in a helping spirit, are the hosts to families provided to them by MCC: a large, international organization well known for its good works.
The MCC has been dealing with refugee resettlement for many years and it is their policy, developed through experience, that for the first few weeks that refugees are setting into their new homes and communities, local media like The Expositor are requested not to interview refugee groups or individuals until they have become settled and have become comfortable with their new surroundings. This newspaper is happy to comply with that reasonable request so don’t expect to see much in the way of direct interaction with our new residents published in the paper for the next few weeks.
The young people in the families will make their way to our local schools, just as the children from the Vietnamese boat family did more than 35 years ago, where they will meet other children and begin to learn English.
Then there are the adults who we must also involve in the life of our communities as they, too, want to begin to master English and start the process of becoming productive members of our Canadian society.
They also want, eventually, to work. In fact, the first two enquiries made by the first family to arrive on Manitoulin last week, when they were met at the Sudbury airport by a group of Manitoulin Island wellwishers, dealt with the possibility of finding work for the adult men in the family and about school for the younger children, all of whom are girls.
Moving into a new country, a new climate, a new culture, and with a new language to learn will be difficult enough.
But for adults, eventually finding employment of any kind and for any duration will be key to how quickly they can begin to get on with their lives in Canada.
Please be thinking about this and if you have suggestions for jobs that could be accomplished, even on a part-time or occasional basis by people who are only now learning English, please pass them on as you think of them to a member of the refugee resettlement committee in your community. If you don’t know anyone in this group, please email your interest to editor@manitoulin.ca and the paper will connect you to a local committee member.
