Syrian family reunited

St. John’s Richmond has welcomed a third Syrian family who came to Canada as sponsored refugees.

Fady Milan, his wife Amina Awed, sons Joseph and Janpier, and nephew Salim Awed arrived in late November and early December. Their application for immigration to Canada dates back to early 2019, but pandemic travel restrictions kept them in limbo in Beirut, Lebanon, for almost three years. They did not all arrive together because Fady, Amina and Janpier were considered one family, while Joseph, who was over 21 years old at the time of application, needed a separate application. Similarly, their nephew Salim was not considered part of the family, so we had to file three separate applications— a mountain of paperwork.

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After the long wait, the Milans are incredibly thankful to finally have made it to Canada. One of the forces driving them and the families we sponsored previously to flee Syria was that they had sons of military age and under no circumstance wanted to lose their young men in the Syrian civil war.

Fady and Amina Milan are in their early fifties, the boys in their twenties, and all are very eager to find work and build a life of their own. Fady is skilled in working with drywall and has an artistic bent and interest in interior design. Joseph studied hostelry, for which he is very suited with his outgoing personality. Salim worked in Beirut for a few years as an assistant to a jeweller and goldsmith and is looking for a job so that he can support his mother and siblings still in Syria. He would like to enrol in HVAC training at Algonquin College. The family have found some part-time contract painting and interior decorating work but are looking for more stable jobs.

With the help of a translator, Joseph Milan told Crosstalk, “I can’t tell you how happy and relieved I am to be here,” he said. He hopes to one day have his own business.

Joseph is already comfortable with Canadian winter and hopes to visit the North someday, but he said others in the family have found the cold temperatures difficult.

The sponsors’ story

Sponsorship started for us when a minister of the “Church of the Christian Community” somewhere in the U.S. circulated a letter trying to find somebody who would sponsor her cousins, two families. I felt bad about the fact that she had virtually no response and spontaneously offered to sponsor one of the families. The Armenian community in Montreal ended up sponsoring both of those families, but the minister got back to me saying she had one more cousin, Esteban Odabashian, with a family who wanted to come to Canada. 

In 2017, we had just organized a group called “Richmond Village Refugee Welcome,” (RVRW) and I joined as treasurer to help with the effort. I suggested sponsoring the Odabashian family, but one member of the RVRW executive vetoed the idea when found out they were Orthodox Christians. My wife and are retired and have more income than we would spend on ourselves. and we are both of an age where the future may be measured in—if we are blessed—a few years, not decades, so I decided to do the sponsorship myself via a “Group of Five” sponsorship.  Sponsorship has been an enriching experience, and we are glad we did it.

The family that I sponsored, the Odabashians, arrived before the Muslim family that the RVRW sponsored. Maritsa Odabashian was fluent in English and helped us a lot with translating. They lived for about four years in the rectory of the Anglican church at very favourable terms, until they bought a house of their own in Barrhaven. The Odabashians are doing extremely well, with four adults working at full time jobs and son Roupen holding an internship at the Ottawa Hospital. 

The second family that the Richmond community sponsored, with help of a Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH) and RVRW, were the Jneids, who are now settled and well-integrated in the community. One of their sons has recently been accepted into a university science program. 

Salma Awed, the mother in the Odabashian family, wished to bring her sister and family over, so we ended up sponsoring the Milan family with the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa as the Sponsorship Agreement Holder.

Generous support from the Anglican church community, the Village of Richmond and many friends made the sponsorship possible.  Presently, the Milans live in a rented townhouse in Barrhaven, well-furnished mostly by one member of RVRW who needed to downsize and contributed most of her furniture. We have raised a fair amount of money (covering rent for the first year) but are still short a few thousand dollars to cover their living expenses and would be very thankful for any additional donations. The treasurer of the St. John’s congregation, Mark Stalter, is taking care of the disbursement of funds collected for the family and can also issue tax receipts for any donations.