Welcoming crowd of about 100 people includes local municipal officials
The B.C. Catholic
A family of refugees has moved from the balmy temperature of war-torn Syria to the ice and snow of northern Canada.
Hussein and Fatima Aarafat and their nine children landed in Whitehorse in January.
“It was a very happy moment,” said Raquel de Queiroz, head of the interfaith group Yukon Cares, who greeted them at the airport. “We mobilized the whole community to make this happen.”
The Muslim family, with children from 21 to 16 months, were greeted by a welcoming crowd of about 100 people, including local municipal officials.
Volunteers handed out extra layers to wear as the refugees moved from the airport to the car to their new home.
“We’re definitely going to teach them ways to stay warm and how to dress for the weather, and how to have fun in the snow as well,” said de Queiroz.
Originally from Brazil, de Queiroz knows Whitehorse will take some getting used to, but she maintains this northern capital city, which dropped to minus 38 degrees in the winter last year, has its charms.
“We have a winter carnival where people have amazing snow sculptures,” she said. There are also dogsled races to watch and hot springs to sit in.
“I have no doubt that our volunteers will show them how to have a good time.”
Yukon Cares sponsored the family with the help of the Diocese of Whitehorse and the Archdiocese of Vancouver.
Yukon Cares is a newly created community group made of members of various faiths and backgrounds with a common concern: helping Syrian refugees. This is the first family they have sponsored, but not the first group of refugees Whitehorse has brought in.
The Diocese of Whitehorse helped plenty of families in need over the 1980s and ’90s, according to Father Kieran Kilcommons. He was the administrator of Sacred Heart Cathedral until recently when their new bishop, Bishop Hector Villa, arrived.
“It’s always been obvious that in these small remote communities you have to help one another,” said Father Kilcommons.
Under the sponsorship agreement the Archdiocese of Vancouver holds with the federal government, it can allow the Diocese of Whitehorse to sponsor families, thanks to a memorandum of understanding.
“We’re making it possible so that Yukon Cares can sponsor them,” Father Kilcommons explained. The diocese is also handling the group’s finances.
“I thought it was an opportunity for the Church to do something pastoral and something that was necessary to help people who were in great need.”
He said it’s not unusual in the north for people of various faiths to unite over something like this.
“It’s a wonderful experience of people setting aside their differences and working together for a greater common good,” he said. “Where it might be unusual someplace else, it’s kind of typical here.”
He and de Queiroz were amazed at the outpouring of generosity that led the group to sponsor a family of 11.
Sacred Heart Cathedral “is a parish that’s very strong on social justice,” said de Queiroz. It turns out the community is, too. “The support has been just incredible.”
Yukon Cares raised $70,000 in just four months, de Queiroz said. “We only had to do one fundraising event.”
That event was a spaghetti dinner for 200 guests which sold out within 20 minutes. Then people just started dropping off cheques. By the end of the night, they had raised $11,000. Donations also poured in through their account on GoFundMe.com.
In total, the group raised over $100,000 and was able to donate a portion of it to a nearby Baptist church that was sponsoring another refugee family.
“The weather here is cold, but the community is very warm.”
