West end schools band together to bring Syrian refugees to Canada

During the Vietnamese refugee crisis, church congregations had an enormous impact, as they sponsored themajority of the 60,000 refugees who arrived in Canada.

An educatorin Toronto hopesin the Syrian refugee crisis, schools can play therole churches did in that crisis decades ago.

KellyGallagher-MacKayis a mother of two school-aged children and an education researcher.She wants toteach young people what it means to become active citizens through herThousand Schools Challenge.

She's organized several hundred families through Dewson Public School in downtown Toronto to sponsor a refugee family and she's challenging school communities across the country to do the same.

She says right now there are 17 schools four joining this week alone involved in the program.

Most of the participating schools are inToronto, and the majority of those are in thecity's westend. But there is also one from Calgaryand one from Kamloops, B.C..

Gallagher-MacKay has been surprised by the results so far.

"The first surprise was the huge amount of interest," she said. "Of 400 families, 300 responded."

She raised $37,000 in a couple of weeks withdonations ranging from $10 to a handful in the $2,000 range.

A family of five from Syria is now coming to Toronto. A group called Lifeline Syria, working with the United Church, identified a family that the UNHigh Commissioner forRefugeessaid was particularly vulnerable, and the school applied to bring them over by the end of this year.

The program even made it into theGrade 6 curriculum, in a lesson aboutmaking social change.

"When children are asked to write about what they would need if they were refugees," said Gallagher-MacKay, "they say we would need a friend and a safe place to live."

The children are also doing more traditional fundraising, such asholding bake sales, to raise money.

A goal of the Thousand Schools program is tohelpto humanize a huge global issue. "By sponsoring one family, rather than trying to solve a huge problem, it makes it doable," she said.

"It's about being an active learner. Schools have always had a role in training people to be citizens,but this is about seeing your own ability to create change."

Interested schools can learn more on the Thousand Schools Challenge website.