Last week, the Senate Committee released their report - Finding Refuge in Canada: A Syrian Resettlement Story. As you may know, OCRA was asked to appear before the Senate Human Rights Committee in October – Our statement to the Committee highlighted several areas of concern for refugee settlement including the importance of access to language [...]
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On a winter afternoon in Ottawa the stories of 1979 meet the aspirations of 2016 A Canadian smile rooted in Vietnam welcomes the Syrian spirit that is looking for the steps to the Canadian dance A burning desire desperate for better In the distance are shadows of boats, high seas,loss and compromise Then a nod [...]
We were only sure that our Syrian friends had arrived after two of the four boys shyly pointed at their names written in Arabic on hand-painted signs as they glided down the escalator at Ottawa's airport. After weeks of frantic preparation, our Syrian family was finally here. The family of six from the Homs region [...]
January 13 was a busy and exciting day for the OCRA Team as we held another community meeting, and welcomed another family to the nation’s capital. The Centretown United Church on Bank Street opened their doors to over two hundred OCRA members, as new and experienced volunteers came together to listen to perspectives on the [...]
After months of planning, meetings and fundraising, the day had finally arrived – OCRA’s first refugee sponsorship family landed in Ottawa, on a cool winter night in late December. It seems fitting that Ayda and her daughters, Isis and Luna, reached Ottawa during the Holidays – a time associated with love, compassion and generosity of [...]
Hello everyone, and welcome to OCRA’s very first blog post! We hope you’ll find this information useful to stay informed about our activities, and learn more about what we do. Let’s kick off this inaugural blog post with a quick recap of our first December community meeting held just a few short weeks ago – on [...]
