Nour Ayal’s last three-and-a-half years have not been easy.
She arrived in Canada on May 10, 2012, escaping the escalating civil war in her native Syria, but the most difficult time of her life had just begun.
Without a word of English and with a two-month-old baby, she stepped off the plane and straight into three years of isolation in her Burnaby home.
“I sit in my house because I have babies,” she says. “I don’t go anywhere because I don’t have any friends here, nothing. I sat in my house three years.”
All that seemed to change in an instant, though, three months ago when she started English classes in the Partners in Education (PIE) program funded by the Canucks Family Education Centre at the Edmonds Community Centre.
Both her children were old enough by then for the free child care and lunches provided, and Ayal hasn’t looked back.
“Oh my god. It’s a new life now,” she says. “I wake up early. I bring my son into the preschool, and I have lots of friends there, from Japanese, from all the world. It’s changed my life.”
But Ayal hasn’t been content to improve only her own lot.
Within two months of starting the PIE program, she and Amal Samra – a fellow Syrian and one of the first people Ayal met when she first came to Canada – began collecting clothes, toys and household items for Syrian refugees.
Samra, a mom of three, with two kids at Edmonds Community School and one at Byrne Creek Secondary, was the one who first told Ayal about the programs at Edmonds.
She came to Canada 14 years ago and has watched her home country disintegrate on TV from afar.
“When I watch the news, the kids, how they’re crying, I start crying,” she says. “I feel bad for them. I just stopped watching because, you know what, I feel really bad. I crying a lot and I can do nothing for them. That’s why I stop watching.”
Instead she has decided to do good where she can, making lunches and volunteering in the daycare at the PIE program, where she was once a student.
Her project with Ayal has taken off with help from Edmonds Community School principal Sean Gaster, who offered up the use of the school’s gymnasium stage and an adjoining storage room as a temporary warehouse for donated goods.
“They have done just an amazing job,” Gaster says of Ayal and Samra. “They’re so connected with the Syrian community. They have rallied all the troops. We’ve collected so much clothing that’s been going out to the families, but the neat thing about it is they’ve done it all on their own.”
Knowing their community, Ayal and Samra say it’s easier for them to overcome new refugees’ reluctance to take charity even when there’s a need – like the family of 11 that arrived in the Edmonds community just last month.
Samra asked the mother if the family needed clothing or shoes or kitchenware.
“She was shy and she didn’t say anything,” Samra says of the woman. “I told her, ‘It’s OK. We know what happened, and just we try to help you.’ And after that she tell what she needs. I told her, ‘I know it’s so hard to accept it, but it’s OK. It’s just short time because you’re new here. Just you need to tell us what you need. After that, when you have money, you can buy what you want.’”
With the flood of donations the two women have received after broadcasting the project on social media, there’s plenty of clothing to go around.
“Yes, clothes not just for Syrian people,” says Ayal. “We have lots people who needs help and now for everybody because we have lots.”
The two women say they have enough clothes for now, but donations of household items, like plates and cups, are still needed. The new Edmonds family, for example, is in need of an electric blender.
With all the changes that have gone on in Ayal’s life already in the last few months, she says it just keeps getting better.
Last week, she began her first paying job in Canada with the Canucks Family Education Centre.
She and Samra have been hired to work at Britannia Secondary School as translators for Syrian refugees.
And four months ago, the Canadian Memorial United Church in Vancouver decided to sponsor Ayal’s sister and her two children.
The two sisters will be reunited at the Vancouver International Airport this Saturday.
“I am so happy,” Nour says, looking back at the last few months of her life. “I am thankful all the time.”
Want to help refugees but don’t know how?
Why not round up a group of friends, a sports team or a group of work colleagues and buy a household care kit for a new refugee family?
Edmonds Community School is looking to gather together 25 such kits, containing household essentials from toilet brushes to dinnerware.
Groups and individuals can either gather the items for the kit or donate $500 per kit so the school can purchase the items.
“Really the project is ideal for a group of people to take one care kit on,” Edmonds principal Sean Gaster said.
The school, which has connections with local refugee families from all over the world, has compiled a list of essentials for families just starting out in Canada.
While the project is a response to the Syrian refugee crisis, the kits will be made available for any refugee family settling anywhere in Burnaby.
To get involved, contact Edmonds community school coordinator Mischa Greenwood at mischa.greenwood@sd41.bc.ca or 604-257-4456 or principal Sean Gaster at sean.gaster@sd41.bc.ca and 604-664-8685.
