We are now approaching 10 years of sponsoring and settling refugees from various parts of the world. Our initial focus was on refugees displaced by the war in Syria and our sponsorships during this initial phase were almost entirely through the Government’s Blended Visa Office Referred Program (BVOR). Following the initial wave of sponsorships, our emphasis was on re-uniting families. Beginning in 2021-22, our primary focus has been on sponsorship of Afghan refugees.
2015 – 2018
During 2015-18, OCRA worked with First United Church Ottawa and Jewish Family Services to co-sponsor and settle 12 family groups of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Central African Republic, Columbia and Ghana under Canada’s Blended Visa Office Referred Program (BVOR). Under the BVOR program, the government received refugee referrals from UNHCR and referred them on to us. For BVOR sponsorships, the government and OCRA each paid half the required income support payments and OCRA paid all of the required start-up funds.
We also sponsored a family of five from Eritrea through the BVOR program with the aid of a grant of $20,400 from the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative. This family had a young son who was unable to escape from Eritrea with them. We raised the funds to sponsor him under the One-Year Window Program, which permits immediate family members to follow refugees who are resettled in Canada.
Reuniting Families 2018 – 2024
Beginning in 2018, our primary focus turned to bringing close of our settled families to Canada. The most pressing concern repeatedly expressed by refugee families who came to Canada was for their close family relatives who were left behind in extremely vulnerable circumstances in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Ethiopia.
Bringing family members to Canada is done through the private sponsorship process. Private sponsorship requires sponsors to fund all settlement costs and is consequently more expensive than sponsorship under the BVOR program.
2019
In 2019, OCRA groups welcomed and settled 3 family groups from Syria (via Jordan and Turkey) who joined their close relatives in Ottawa. These families comprised 16 people in total. Under the private sponsorship program, the full settlement costs of $105,770 were paid from donations to OCRA.
2020
In 2020, just before Covid pandemic restrictions took effect, OCRA welcomed a Syrian grandmother and another Syrian family (via Lebanon) who arrived to join close relatives already here. The full cost of these private sponsorships, $39,100, was paid from donations to OCRA.
2021
In April 2021, OCRA welcomed a 17-year-old boy from Eritrea who came to be reunited with his family whom we had earlier sponsored in 2018. $6,700 was raised by OCRA to cover the full cost of this private sponsorship.
Just before Christmas 2021 — almost 3 years after the sponsorship application was filed — we welcomed a single mother and her three children from Jordan, where they had been living since their home was destroyed in 2013. They have relatives in Ottawa who will assist with integration in our city. Full cost of this sponsorship, $39,450, was paid from donations to OCRA.
2023
In January, 2023, OCRA welcomed a single woman in her early 20’s who had fled to Lebanon, where she experienced increasingly fragile conditions and domestic abuse. Donations to OCRA of $16,500 funded this sponsorship.
In September, 2023, we welcomed a Syrian family of five who had fled to Turkey and who joined close relatives in Ottawa. This family’s application had been filed in November 2020 and was delayed in processing due to the pandemic. $45,600 in settlement costs was raised from donations by OCRA supporters.
We also welcomed a family of five from Iran, who had originally fled to Australia. The family survived a harrowing boat trip to Australia after experiencing torture in Iran, only to find the the Australian government just weeks earlier had declared that nobody arriving by boat would ever be permitted to settle in Australia. They endured locked and community detention in Australia from 2013 to January 2023,when they landed in Canada under OCRA’s sponsorship. OCRA worked with an Australian refugee support group on this sponsorship, which was filed with the Canadian Government in September 2021. Settlement funding of $40,000 was provided by our Australian colleagues.
2024
In 2024, we assisted with the sponsorship of a young family, originally from Syria, who were reunited with close family members in Ottawa. This family fled to Jordan during the Syrian civil war and faced increasingly difficult conditions. The sponsorship was filed with the United Church in November 2020 but could not be sent to the Government until September 2021 when “application space” became available. Government processing was delayed by the pandemic and it took 32 months for the family to arrive.
Afghan Sponsorships 2021 – 2024
As conditions continued to deteriorate in Afghanistan, we broadened the scope of our sponsorships to include endangered families from Afghanistan, many of who had fled to Iran and Pakistan. We have worked with Afghans already in Canada to identify vulnerable Afghan families and also with refugee support groups in Australia who were in contact with Afghan refugees.
During 2022-23, OCRA worked intensively with the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa and other refugee groups to secure expediting processing for 16 applications to sponsor a total of 34 Afghan journalists, women leaders, doctors, engineers, and human rights defenders. Our sponsored Afghan refugees began to arrive in May 2023, and continued to arrive each month until mid-December 2023. In June 2024, e welcomed another family of four. all but five of the Afghans we originally sponsored have now arrived. All are successfully settling in Ottawa and they when asked about coming to Canada, all say: ” We feel safe.'”
A total of $313,950 was contributed to cover the settlement costs of these Afghan arrivals, $251,950 from individual donors and $62,00 from the Cybec Foundation in Australia.