Refugee crisis: Sponsorship rewards discussed at workshop

Community groups in Summerside got a lesson Wednesday night in how to sponsor a refugee family, part of a planned series of workshops across P.E.I.

Lauren Craig, a member Summerside Community Church, which is considering sponsoring a family, was driven to the meeting by a news story that compared the current Syrian refugee crisis to the last great refugee crisis in Europe.

"I was on Facebook and I saw a statement made comparing this to World War II," said Craig.

• Syrian refugee family arrives in Charlottetown

"I remember being a little girl, sitting in social studies class and thinking if I was alive then, if I was alive during World War II, I would do something."

Craig decided she needed to act on that promise she made to herself as a girl.

Financial commitment obtainable

Melissa Coffin of the P.E.I. Association for Newcomers to Canada led the workshop.

"They can see that, you know, it's actually a really rewarding process that it's easy enough," said Coffin of sponsoring a refugee family.

"There is financial commitments that are involved with it, but that it's obtainable if you get enough people that are involved in it."

P.E.I. has so far welcomed a few families who have fled the Syrian crisis with more on the way, but they have all landed in Charlottetown.The PEIANC held the Summerside workshop in response to growing interest in the western part of the province.

Trinity United Church in Summerside is in the process of bringing two families to the west end of the Island.

The association hopes meetings like the one in Summerside can help educate those who doubt the benefit of bringing refugees to the province. Coffin said P.E.I. has a lot to share, but refugees bring a lot to the province in return.

"They stay on P.E.I. and they build their families here," she said.

"They're giving back to the community. So we have to sometimes look at what are they giving to us instead of what do they take from us."

She said the children of refugees who settled here years ago are now thriving.

The P.E.I. Association of Newcomers to Canada will be holding similar sessions in the Charlottetown area, and if the interest is there they'll hold one in the Kings County too.