In the short time that Nawal Alkaied has made Burnaby her home, she’s fallen in love with the city.
The mother of two children arrived in Burnaby in January as a refugee from war-torn Syria.
While Alkaied hopes to settle in the community with her family long-term, her new home hasn’t come without some pretty big challenges.
Through a translator, she explained her son is expected to enter Grade 10, but other than a couple months at the tail end of the last school year, he hasn’t been in school for four years and she’s not sure if he’ll be able to keep up.
Alkaied also found work as a cook, but had to quit just four days later due to health reasons and a lack of understanding the requirements.
But a less obvious difficulty in her short time in Canada is thefeeling of isolation. Neither she nor her kids have any friends.
That’s how a place like the Burnaby Neighbourhood House can help.
The organization has been providing settlement services for years, but the influx of new refugees has its programs bursting at the seams.
Burnaby Neighbourhood House executive director Antonia Beck suggested local resources are tapped and existing programs are fully subscribed, adding the organization often has to turn people away.
“It breaks my heart to not be able to meet the needs of everybody,” she said.
Adding to the struggle, the neighbourhood house said it lost $60,000 in funding to provide settlement services after the province transferred responsibility to the federal government.
She said the organization tried to apply for federal funding but was unsuccessful. She noted organizations that didn’t have a funding agreement in the past with the Canadian government have no mechanism to apply for funding.
Beck noted a long list of services needed to help refugees settle into their new country, including more language classes, which are now filled, specialized support to deal with trauma, including play therapy for children and teaching kitchens to promote healthy diets.
In 2014, 20 per cent of refugees that arrived in B.C. settled in Burnaby. In 2015, the federal Liberal government committed to resettling 25,000 Syrian refugees.
And of the 191 refugees that arrived in the province from April 1 to June 30, 11 per cent came to Burnaby.
Annually, Burnaby Neighbourhood House said it deals with 1,300 newcomers.
On Friday, the NDP called on the federal government to revisit who can qualify for funding for resettlement services.
During a media event at the neighbourhood house, NDP MP Jenny Kwan, the Critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, argued settlement services are deficient and there are funding shortfalls for existing programs.
Another organization, Pacific Immigrant Resources Society was also on hand for the press conference, and is facing a similar situation as Burnaby Neighbourhood House.
PIRS also lost funding in the transition, but officials noted $30,000 a year provide would fund an English class for 20 women and 20 children.
The MP argued organizations like the neighbourhood house are already on the ground doing the work.
“That is a waste of resources and capacity,” she said. “That to me is absolutely idiotic. We’re not utilizing our resources in an effective way.”
Kwan said Canada is doing important work by welcoming refugees, but it doesn’t stop once they’ve arrived.
She said the government needs to make sure the resettlement of refugees is done right and proper support is provided to them.
