Former refugees share stories

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This article was published 21/06/2023 (1183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Four former refugees settled in Brandon from multiple countries and continents told their stories on stage at Brandon University’s Evans Theatre on Tuesday afternoon to commemorate World Refugee Day.

Westman Immigrant Services and the Brandon University Students’ Union brought together four people to talk about how they came to Canada and the Wheat City in a panel discussion moderated by WIS volunteer co-ordinator Katrina Casulla.

In her introduction, Casulla said the focus would be on how the panellists found “hope away from home,” which is also the United Nations’ theme for this year’s World Refugee Day.

“It’s to focus on how inclusion for refugees is the best way to get them started with their new lives,” Casulla said.

Fatumo Ahmed, a program department lead for the federal government’s Resettlement Assistance Program, also spoke before the panel about the program, which provides newcomers with income support and other assistance when they first arrive in Canada.

Though she’s Somali-Canadian, she said she was born in a refugee camp in Kenya, where she spent more than half of her life.

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark,” Ahmed quoted from a poem by Somail-British writer Warsan Shire. “You only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well.”

The event’s panellists were Robert Asiimwe, who arrived in Canada from the Democratic Republic of Congo this February; Bahri Sami, who arrived from Syria in 2021; Nataliia Rochenko, who came from Ukraine this January; and Aida Harrison, who left Palestine for Canada in 1999 with her late husband and two children.

When Harrison came to Canada, she said it was less because her family had a desire to move to the country and more because she wanted her children to not be at risk of being shot when playing outside.

For the first three years of her stay in Brandon, she said she cried every day and dreamed of returning home to her hometown of Bethlehem. However, during a recent trip back to Palestine, she said she started to look forward to returning to her new home.

One of the challenges she said she experienced in her more than two decades in Brandon was losing both friends and professionals like doctors to bigger cities such as Winnipeg because they have more amenities.

She said she hoped Brandon would continue to work on becoming a more attractive place to live and to work as a city to make it easier for newcomers to start businesses.

After her husband died a decade ago, Harrison said she recognized that her previous job wasn’t going to bring in enough income to put her kids through university.

She thanked her former students at Assiniboine Community College for encouraging her to start a business, Aida’s Catering, and for Brandon for giving her support to the point where she has opened a second business, The Backyard on Aberdeen.

The trip to Canada for Asiimwe wasn’t a direct one. During the Ituri Conflict in 2003, he said many members of his family were “butchered” before he and his sisters eventually fled to another city where they were eventually evacuated to a refugee camp in Uganda.

Members of Asiimwe’s family were in the audience, receiving a round of applause after he acknowledged them.

First arriving in Canada and seeing the snow, he said it was like he had moved to another planet. Asiimwe thanked the Government of Canada and for the people of Canada for being so welcoming.

His family’s home in Brandon, he said, was the first time he had a permanent home that wasn’t a tent.

Moving forward, he said he would like to see government assistance to help him, his wife and their kids get a university education.

Rochenko were assisted by a translator, also named Nataliia, who read from some prepared remarks. She said Brandon reminds her a lot of her hometown.

Since moving to the Wheat City, she said she has found work as a dietary aide at a local personal care home. She said she would like to make Brandon her permanent home and is grateful she can practise her traditions and culture safely during some tough times for Ukrainians.

In a short time since coming to Canada, Rochenko said she had met a lot of people, all of whom were helpful and welcoming in her settlement.

With the help of translator Hadier Elfasay, Sami said his journey to a Canada started by walking on foot from Syria to Turkey, where his family then spent four years in a refugee camp. They went through refugee interviews in Ankara, before moving to Istanbul. They stayed in Turkey for seven years before flying to Toronto, then to Winnipeg and then finally moving to Brandon.

He said Westman Immigrant Services helped immensely with the move to Brandon, helping find his family a nice place to live. After one year and nine months, Sami said he is still working on perfecting his English skills so he can have a greater presence in the community.

Providing opening remarks were Mayor Jeff Fawcett and Julia Krykavska, co-founder of local Ukrainian-Canadian association Tryzub.

Fawcett reminisced about having celebrated World Refugee Day since he was in junior high school when many people were coming to Canada from Vietnam.

He praised what former refugees have accomplished in the city as business owners and members of the community.

Krykavska, who came to Canada from Ukraine in 2008, thanked Westman Immigrant Services for teaching her English when she arrived. She also spoke of what she called Russia’s “homicidal” invasion of Ukraine.

“Regardless of country or nationality, people have the right not to be killed in their homes,” she said, adding that Ukraine has been subject to just that for the last year and a half.

She said since the invasion, Tryzub has reorganized itself to better serve those affected by the war and connect them with the services they need.

That has included making thousands of perogies and cabbage rolls to fundraise. According to her, more than 200 Ukrainian families have been settled in Westman since the outbreak of the war.

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