2024 - First Quarter McDougall United/Christ Moravian Church Refugee Support Group Update
Special Request for Mustafa’s Palestinian family in Gaza tent camp – Mustafa and his brother Mahmoud are grateful and overwhelmed by the generosity of our churches and community who donated more than $10,000 to help pay the fee required by the Egyptian organization for their safe passage from the Rafah camp to Egypt. They liquidated their savings and borrowed money from friends to help pay the $25,000 US cost of saving their 14 family members. They are now hoping their family will be able to leave April 9-10. This date coincides with EID, the Muslim holiday at the end of Ramadan and would truly be a wonderful reason to celebrate. Family members will join other family members in an apartment in Cairo. They hope to get a second apartment soon. Beyond escaping from Rafah they have no further plans. Mahmoud applied to the Canadian government to get visas for these family members but so far has had no response. To my knowledge none of the 1000 visas our federal government had said they would offer Palestinians have led to any Palestinians coming to Canada. Update April 4: We are very pleased to learn that Mustafa’s father and step mother were able to leave Gaza and are now safe in Egypt. We hope that the remaining 12 family members will be able to move to Egypt soon.
A group member coaches Farida on ESL most weeks. Improving her English is important to her in her job. Her three little girls seem happy and school seems to be going well. Friend Agila attends English classes 5 nights a week and sees friends from these classes when not helping Farida with child care. All three women continue to struggle with the memories of their hardships in Afghanistan but although we can listen, really helping with this trauma is beyond our group’s capabilities.
Wali’s family has moved from their apartment to renting a house. They now have more space for their four children and enjoy having a backyard. A group member delivers Acadia Pantry food to them once a month and stays to chat. Wali has a full-time job handling luggage at the Calgary airport. This family now seems to be in a stable situation.
McDougall has a history of reaching out to help refugees that you should all be very proud of. In 2001 Janet Hansen and Dot McKee provided social support for more than 5 years to a family of 6 (mother and 5 children) from Kosovo. In 2004 Sylvia and Ted Steventon, thru a referral from Calgary Catholic Immigration Services, provided social support to a family from Iran. Sylvia is still in touch with this family. Pat Shea supported a family from Afghanistan. In 2016 McDougall joined with 3 other United churches to sponsor a family from Syria. Since then our group, in recent partnership with Christ Moravian church, has supported 7 families. Your recent generosity to help Mustafa’s family escape from the Rafah camp and from the genocidal war inflicted by the Netanyahu-led ultra orthodox coalition in Israel is only the most recent and powerful example of our faith in action.
At McDougall’s Sunday service on April 14 Nesreen Sawaiah and her daughter Kholoud from our first Syrian family will speak to our congregation about the importance of Ramadan and EID to them and their faith community. I am hoping that if family members have left Rafah by that date Mustafa and his family might also attend.
Thank you to you all for your expressions of interest, questions and financial support. We could not do this work without you.
Rhonda Amiot, Catherine Clake, (both from Christ Moravian) June Clarke, Donna Gordon (also from Christ Moravian), Evelda Love, Jean MacEachern, Marjorie MacRae team lead, Kiran McKee (community), Michael Plumb, Les Pearson (community), Joanne Pritchard, Leslie Stoddart and David Smith
To learn more about the Refugee work happening, please visit the Refugee Support Webpage.