SHELBURNE, N.S. — For nurse practitioner Georg MacDonald it’s personal – the work that the Canadian Afghan Rescue Effort (CARE) in Shelburne has done and is doing to bring a family of nine Afghan refugees to Canada.
“This was a personal mission for me because the father of the family is a pharmacist who worked with Doctors without Borders,” says MacDonald. “He’s a personal friend. I have known him since I was working for Doctors without Borders during the war."
In 2012 she was in Afghanistan for nine months.
MacDonald said her friend Shokrullah’s work “was like a well-oiled machine."
"I have respect for him as a manager and as a pharmacist. He’s one of the best.”
Since then Shokrullah has continued his humanitarian work. While on a mission in Sierra Leone the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
“His family was there in Kabul. They were threatened by the Taliban because they came looking for the father because he was in the national police service before he became a pharmacist. So with that he was advised not to go back to Afghanistan," MacDonald said.
"He was able to get his family moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan. They are now waiting to come to Canada and he’s back on a mission to Sierra Leone. His family is refugees, he’s a refugee and still doing humanitarian work. He’s just an amazing man.”
The family includes Shokrullah’s mother, wife and six children ages 3 to 20.
MacDonald said the CARE committee has been working for a while now and has the initial money required to bring the family to Canada. “We’re just waiting for the wheels to turn.”
The committee still needs to fundraise about $10,000, which they are doing with a silent auction at the Shelburne Harbour Yacht Club and through several online auctions.
The online fundraiser will be facilitated by Me to We on its Facebook group, says committee member Mimi Champagne.
“Since the demise of Me to We, they partner with other charities to help with fundraising. They are a very small group and as such can only take a few of our items.”
People can join the Me to We Tri-County Online Auction public group on Facebook.
Champagne said the family being sponsored falls within the parameters outlined by the Canadian government for special resettlement programs, which means that the usual waiting period – that can be up to three or four years – has been considerably reduced for Afghan people.
“We are hopeful that our family can arrive in 2023,” she said.
“On the whole, we have received great support from our community and from local businesses, large and small, who have donated items for our auction,” added Champagne
“We have encountered a bit of pushback from people who are less than well-informed, and who feel that refugees will take jobs away from local people. There are also a small number of people who believe that our own seniors receive less support than refugees," she said.
This is untrue, she said, quoting from the Government of Canada website: ‘Refugees do not get more financial help from the federal government than Canadian pensioners. A commonly shared email makes this false claim. The email falsely includes the one-time start-up payment as part of the monthly payment. The amount of monthly financial support that government-assisted refugees get is based on social assistance rates in each province and territory. It is the minimum amount needed to cover only the most basic food and shelter needs.’
Champagne noted the CARE Committee is private sponsorship, as opposed to government sponsorship.
“As private sponsors, we are entirely responsible for financial support of the family for 12 months after their arrival in Canada. This is what our family will receive from the government: information and orientation services, help finding and keeping a job, language training, support to build connections in communities," she added, citing the Government of Canada website.
Champagne said tax-deductible donations can be sent directly to the CARE Committee’s Sponsorship Agreement holder, the Universalist Unitarian Church of Halifax. The address is 5500 Inglis Street, Halifax, NS B3H 1J8, c/o Marilyn Shinyei.
“You can also e-transfer to them at [email protected]. Please be sure to mention C.A.R.E. in the notes window and provide a street address (CRA requirement) and an email address (receipts will go by email when possible at year-end),” she said.
Since 2016, like-minded people have come together in Shelburne to help Syrian refugee families come to Canada, said MacDonald.
“Over the years we have brought a number of different refugee families to the area and we’re still working on more families from Syria,” MacDonald said.
“Shelburne has been amazing – the number of refugee families we already have living in our tiny little town,” added MacDonald. “I’m so proud of the Shelburnites because I don’t know how we keep doing it in such a tiny town.”
Champagne said there are currently two groups trying to bring in refugees to the Shelburne area – the CARE Committee and the Shelburne Refugee Support group, which has applied to sponsor a third family and other relatives of a family already here; a further seven people, five adults and two children.
The Shelburne Refugee Support Group was also instrumental in bringing a Syrian family of two adults and two young children in 2016, and another Syrian family of three, now four as a new baby was born here in 2018.
A family of two adults and four children from Syria was sponsored by Shelburne's United Church in 2016, and relatives of one of the families, a Syrian family of two adults and six children, sponsored by Operation Compassion in Meteghan, arrived in Meteghan in December 2020 and moved to Shelburne in July 2021.
