This month, we had the honour of helping to support 300 African refugees being temporarily housed at two churches in North York. Our community’s response to our urgent call to action was nothing short of inspiring. In a matter of days, enough money was donated to provide not 300 meals, but a total of 1,500 meals (one each week until the end of August), and dozens of volunteers signed up to bake, cook and serve meals at the church.
This flood of love and support, from you, our community, is the Jewish value to care for our neighbours, in action and we are so proud and grateful to be a part of such a special community.
As incredible as it has been to respond to the urgent needs in this crisis, the reality is that after fleeing unspeakable circumstances back home, these refugees now face a very challenging road ahead. Like my own parents, this is something many members of our community can relate to. There are currently an estimated 2,900 refugees and asylum-seeker claimants in Toronto’s shelter system – a growth of 500 percent in the last 20 months.
And while right now, the urgent focus is on basic needs like food and shelter, once they catch their breath, they will need more intensive support to transition to their new life: to navigate the system, to heal, and to prepare for gainful employment and full participation in Canadian society.
That’s where Ve’ahavta comes in. Refugees now account for 31% of our essential skills and paid internship program participants, an increase of 12% over last year. And we expect that number to keep growing.
When you support Ve’ahavta, you enable us to increase the number of people we can accept into our programs – programs with an unheard-of 95% success rate – so that in addition to providing immediate relief in the form of meals, we can help our new friends to succeed long-term, in their new home. When newcomers succeed, we all benefit. To quote Ghandi: “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
The more you can give, the more people we can help.
Cari Kozierok,
Executive Director, Ve’ahavta
