Manitoba town pulls together to find interpreters for Swahili-speaking refugee family

Imagine arriving in a new country and not knowing either of the two main languages. That's the reality a family of eight faced when they moved to rural Manitoba two weeks ago.

But residents of their small town are banding together to help their newest residents learn English.

The Congolese family moved into Killarney, Man., a farming town about 200 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, late last month. The refugee family, who speakSwahili, had been living in Burundi since 2004.

"They came down the stairs and there wasn't even in a hello in English," said Laura Rowley, one of the community members who travelled to Winnipeg to meet the family.

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"Itwas probably a paradoxical feeling ... of, you know, that feeling of, 'OK, this is going to be a long journey' but also some excitement," she said, recounting her feeling upon finding out the family knew no English.

Rowley, who is on the town's settlement committee, said they were aware of the predicament before the family arrived and knew it would be a challenge, given the lack of Swahili speakers and interpreters in the area.

However, she said, community members vowed to find a way to make it work and have been turning to some unconventional methods to teach the family English and about life in Canada.

On the day of their arrival, a relative of a community member met the family at the airport. Fluent in Swahili, she travelled to Killarney and spent the next 24 hours with them, Rowley said.

"It's been an interesting journey," Rowley said, adding that the girl had to get back to school in Winnipeg and couldn't stay longer.

Community members pitch in

So community members took to Facebook. Soon, they found a man from Brandon who knows Swahili. He came to town one weekendto help them with tasks like grocery shopping and filling out paperwork.

"We have been ... trying to pull resources together and connections and we're on our way," she said.

Rowley, an English language teacher herself, also kept notebooks from a university Swahili class she took and has been able to help teach the family how to do some basic tasks.

"I had two15-second calls completely in English yesterday," she said. "So from no English two weeks ago, to 15 seconds on the phone ... that's amazing."

She said three interpreters are coming to townon Wednesday as part of the effort to slowly immerse the family into the community.

Study looks into newcomer settling

The efforts highlightthe challenges rural communities face in settling newcomers. A study released late last year from Brandon University's Rural Development Institute found the lack of language services was a common issue among communities that settled Syrian refugees.

The same study found people were eager to help however they could. Rowley said that's how to best describe the people of Killarney.

"There's been a lot of Swahili learned in Killarney in the last two weeks," she saidwith a chuckle. "The community has been really really involved."

"It's so new," she said. "Not just the English ... the culture, the food, the concepts."

Rowley said the next steps will be to prepare the family's children for school. Plans are also underway to bring in permanent language classes for the family.