Kanchi Uttamchandani, Staff Writer
Featured image courtesy of York University Syria Response and Refugee Initiative
The phrase “refugee crisis” denotes the image of Syrians fleeing their war-torn land. However, there are refugee crisis all over the globe that deserve attention.
Last week’s events offered York community members the chance to further their knowledge and advocacy repertoire in ways students and faculty can take advantage of.
“We all have been galvanized today by the global refugee crisis, not just from a policy point of view but also from an advocacy point of view,” says Lorne Sossin, dean of Osgoode Law Hall School, who addressed the audience at the refugee advocacy and training event.
“We are at a critical juncture where we are seeing our own legal and political systems make Canadians both proud and anxious at the same time, giving us moments to reflect upon for change.”
John Carlaw, project lead of the Syria Response and Refugee Initiative at York, took to the podium to highlight the signature elements of the program, namely increased WUSC sponsorships.
Five refugee students will be able to study at York beginning this fall.
York’s partnership with Ryerson in this pan-university fundraising project includes multiple sponsorship teams affiliated to different faculties at the York chapter, including Team Osgoode, Team Health, and AMPD for Syria among other faculties.
“Osgoode, together with the University of Ottawa, has put together the largest student effort – the students so far have helped complete the application of over 200 refugees seeking to be resettled in the GTA,” says Pierre-André Thériault, Osgoode lead on this project and a refugee lawyer based in Toronto.
The training component of the event was facilitated by Christina Harrison Baird, an international human rights lawyer who kickstarted the training session with a powerful opening remark.
“An average of two children are dying every day in the Mediterranean sea. What is our response to that? We need to make sure that ours is a charitable and humanitarian response grounded in human rights and social justice.”
Baird explains the definition of a refugee and the five crucial indicators to identify their status. A refugee is someone who is outside the borders of the country they are fleeing due to a well-founded fear of persecution and must be unable or unwilling to go back.
While persecution as a concept is not as clearly definable as a refugee, it represents a continuum ranging from negative prejudices to grave crisis such as genocide and ethnic cleansing. Persecution occurs in multiple forms of race, religion, nationality, social group, and political opinion, explains Baird.
“Our resettlement commitment is a great start, but Canada has lots of room to improve,” says Baird. “For example, reunification of refugee families is excruciatingly slow. The United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed concern that Canada is violating the rights of refugee children separated from their parents.”
“Refugee advocacy remains an essential element in our quest for a just society. Our campaign therefore is characterized by three central themes which are family reunification, accepting refugees from all regions, and welcoming all refugee claimants, not just Syrian refugees.”
Baird concludes the session by mobilizing students to partake in three different activities designed to make students act as advocates for refugee rights, namely “MP roleplay,” by writing letters to the minister of immigration, requesting speedy family reunification for refugees and designing postcards in order to create a welcoming space for refugees.
The new Canadian Council for Refugees and Amnesty International’s Refugees Welcome Here campaign and advocacy training seemed like a perfect fit for the refugee training program.
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