MANITOULIN—A date has now been announced for the arrival of three families of refugees to Manitoulin Island from Eritrea.
“We now have an arrival date in Toronto for the families, of February 18,” stated Johanna Allison, one of the coordinators of the Gore Bay-Western Manitoulin group on the Island, on Monday.
“There is one family, a grandmother and her grandson (the latter being 16 years of age) that will be coming to live here in Gore Bay, and another two families who are going to live in Little Current,” said Ms. Allison.
“We had received word Friday (February 5) that the smaller Little Current family and the Gore Bay family would be arriving on February 18,” said Island committee spokesperson Dr. Ben Quackenbush.
“Then we received word tonight that the larger Little Current family would be arriving in Toronto on February 18 as well. They will be receiving their processing to Toronto and then probably be coming up that evening.”
Some of the information is still up in the air. “We don’t yet know that exact arrival times,” said Dr. Quackenbush. As to travel arrangements, “each of the groups on the Island is making their own transportation arrangements,” he said.
Once the families have arrived and settled in the real work of making the families welcome to the community will begin, but a lot has been accomplished already.
“It will be about three months before the federal funding will start flowing,” said Dr. Quackenbush, “but all of the houses are complete. We don’t need any more to furnish them and about 75 percent of what we need this year has been raised so we are in pretty good shape.”
As for the family who will be living in Gore Bay, “the house they will be living in (which is owned by Kidane and Almaz Gebrekristose on Lighthouse Road) is ready to go,” said Ms. Allison. “On Saturday the new furniture will be delivered and put into the house so everything will be ready for the family.”
