Syrian refugees were the recipients of an emergency relief fund that ends today. It was established in September by the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper just days after the body of three-year old Alan Kurdi was photographed, washed-up on a Turkish shoreline.
The donor-matching program was extended from December 31st, until today by the new Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. Contributions Canadians made to registered charities were matched by the government up to $100 million (Cdn). By the first week of January Canadians had donated $12 million.
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Meg French, of UNICEF Canada just returned from a visit to the Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan and she urges Canadians to donate. The temporary home to 120,000 people is now the second-largest refugee camp in the world.
ListenMeg French says, she saw people who were not far from home, just 15 kilometers from the border, but they could not go back. She described the conditions, which includes schools UNICEF has built, 8 playgrounds, hospitals, and even shops. 5005 babies were born in the four years the community has existed.
“People just want to go back to their old lives.”
“On the surface people are getting the support they needed, kids are having an opportunity to be part of the formal school setting or an informal schooling, they’re getting psycho-social care, there’s health care provided,” French said, but she was struck by the boredom. In the artificiality of it all she says “people just want to go back to their old lives.”
Meanwhile, this past weekend the 25,000th Syrian refugee arrived in Canada fulfilling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s committment made in November. More than half of the newly arrived families will be supported by the government for the first year. The rest will be supported by private groups or a mix of the two.
To date, the Canadian government has contributed $969 million (Cdn) in humanitarian assistance and development support for the victims of the Syrian civil war.
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