Saela Haj Mohamad, her husband and three of her kids walked out of war-torn Syria into Turkey in November 2013.
They walked away from everything they had – but only one thing they left behind still matters to Haj Mohamad.
“My son,” she said. “Everything at home is nothing to me compared to my son.”
Zardasht was 14 when he was kidnapped three-and-a-half years ago by Arab extremist rebels on his way to school in Aleppo – a victim of what has been described as a civil war within a civil war between al-Qaida-linked militants and Kurdish forces in northern Syria.
When the family walked into Turkey six months later, they had to leave Zardasht behind, not knowing whether he was alive or dead.
“It was a very difficult decision,” his mother told Burnaby school trustees through a translator at a school board meeting last Tuesday.
Haj Mohamad, along with her son Ojalan, 14, and daughter Barfin, 11, came to the meeting as part of a presentation by the school district’s Settlement Workers in Schools (SWIS) program, which helps refugee and new immigrant families settle into local schools.
Last year the federally funded program, which consists of a coordinator and 12 settlement workers, helped 1,422 clients, a number that includes school-aged children and their family members.
Nearly 250 were refugees.
That number is set to jump in January and February as the federal government brings in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February 2016.
More than half of Syrian refugees are currently under the age of 18, according to United Nations Refugee Agency data, and many suffer from mental health conditions and trauma after their experiences of violence and dislocation during the ongoing civil war and as refugees.
Schools will play a crucial role in their successful settlement in Canada, according to Chris Friesen of the Vancouver-based Immigrant Services Society of B.C.
“Schools are going to play a critical role in the settlement of Syrian refugee children,” he told the NOW, “and that’s going to mean the necessity for additional specialized English-language supports, as well as, we perceive, some additional training opportunities for school psychologists, school counsellors and classroom teachers.”
Immigrant Services predicts between 477 and 596 government-assisted Syrian refugees will end up in Burnaby.
With 34 per cent of the refugee population currently between the ages of five and 17, that means between 162 and 202 school-aged refugee children will soon enter Burnaby schools.
“We’re hopeful and confident that the school community will pull together to provide the best possible start for these children who have been dislocated and have missed, in some cases, years of education because of their refugee experience,” Friesen said.
Before starting at Burnaby schools in June, Ojalan and Barfin hadn’t been to school for four years.
In Aleppo, as conditions deteriorated, the family was often too terrified to leave home to get food, let alone send the children to school while barrel bombs rocked their apartment building, demolished their neighbourhood and killed their neighbours.
“At one time, I didn’t cook anything for my children for three days,” Haj Mohamad told the NOW.
When they got to Turkey, her children were ineligible for school because the family didn’t live in a camp, Haj Mohamad said.
It hasn’t been easy going back to school after four years, especially since Ojalan, now in Grade 9 at Burnaby South Secondary, and Barfin, now in Grade 6 at Maywood Elementary, didn’t know any English before they got to Canada.
Ojalan, a shy youth even in Kurdish, said gym class was the worst during his first few days at Burnaby South this past June.
The teacher would call out instructions, he said, and everyone would know what to do except him.
“After the teacher was done, I’d be the only one standing there not knowing what was going on,” he told the NOW through an interpreter.
“It was very difficult in the beginning,” said his mother. “It was challenging for both children. They felt deaf. They didn’t understand what was going on.”
The district’s summer program for new immigrants and refugees at Byrne Creek Secondary was a lifeline.
“Most of the people in summer program had the same level of English as me, so I didn’t feel as much like I was on my own,” Ojalan said.
At summer school, he met a few Arabic speakers he could talk to in his second language, and even one fellow Burnaby South student, Adam Ahmah, whose family is also Kurdish and from Syria.
Another boon to the family has been school settlement worker Hafal Ahmad, who speaks both Kurdish and Arabic.
For Haj Mohamad, the biggest challenge, both when the family arrived in April, and now, is language, so having someone in the school district she can talk to has been crucial.
With the many difficulties the family faces (they have no friends or family here and haven’t been able to find jobs because of their limited English skills) the way her children have been treated in Canada has been a bright spot for Haj Mohamad.
“The care the children get here is something that makes me happy,” she said. “Every day, I see, like with their school level or community level or government level, the care the children receive is something really exceptional.”
Her hope for the future is that her children will get a good education and establish a good life in Canada.
“I know my children will be safe here,” she said.
But not all of her children are in Canada.
Haj Mohamad believes Zardasht, who is now 18, is still alive.
At about the time the family left Syria, they got word Kurdish fighters had rescued him, but the family hasn’t been able to find out where he is or to confirm he’s OK.
What gives Haj Mohamad hope and keeps her spirits up is her daughter Barfin – who is already soaking up English like a sponge and had no reservations about addressing the school board in her new language last Tuesday.
“Hi. My name is Barfin,” she said. “I’m Grade 6. My first time in school, that was so hard. I was don’t like go to school and I don’t know English and I don’t have friends, but now I like go to school and I have friends.”
She brings the same optimism to her conversations with her mother about the brother who was taken from them.
“She gives me hopes,” Haj Mohamad said. “She says, ‘One day we’ll get him here; he’ll be here. And one day I’ll become a doctor. I’ll make you proud.’”
