Regional Connections hosted its second annual Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP) year-end party last month, bringing together newcomers from all over the world in celebration of not just the holiday season but also the hope that exists for a brighter future.
RAP welcomed 123 refugees in 2024, shared coordinator Russelle Collantes. The Dec. 20 gathering, held at The Bunker in Winkler, was a chance to reflect on how far all these families have come.
“Despite challenges, here you are, standing strong and ready to start your journey,” he told the assembled guests, which included RAP clients, staff, and community partners.
“We are here because of each other. The friendship, the mentorship, the connection, the support,” Collantes stressed. “We are here because we believe in the strong foundation of the community. “
Many of these families will go on to put down roots in the Pembina Valley communities that have welcomed them, shared Tina Barkman, settlement program director.
“It’s about two-thirds that stay in our community,” she said. “The other third, they eventually go and join family in other parts of the country.”
RAP provides participants with a helping hand as they work to get on their feet in an unfamiliar country.
“Everything from picking them up from the airport, providing them with temporary housing, taking them grocery shopping for the first time, teaching them where to get different resources, helping them find permanent housing, introducing them to schools,” Barkman explained.
Thanks to government funding, RAP families receive financial support for one year, giving them time to learn English and secure employment.
“We connect them with the different resources in the community,” Barkman said. “Help them learn English, employability skills, life skills—everything.
“I always marvel at their resilience,” she added, noting the families in this program are fleeing war in their home countries or have spent years in refugee camps abroad before finally making their way to Canada. “In order to get here, it’s been a long, arduous journey, and it’s been very hard for them … some of them have been through so much.”
Photo by Ashleigh Viveiros/Voice
For Bikalira Furaha, who arrived in Canada this fall, this country represents a chance at a new life for her and her two children.
She’s spent the past two decades in a sort of limbo after fleeing the war in her native county, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“When I left Congo, there was war between two countries: Congo and Rwanda,” she shared. “There was a time that soldiers used to come in the houses, in the night. I had the bad luck to be visited.”
She survived the assault she suffered at the hands of those soldiers, and even saw one of them brought to justice. But, fearing retribution from his family and friends, she had to leave the country. Furaha has lived as a refugee in South Africa ever since.
“We are privileged to come here,” she said, noting there are few supports in South Africa for displaced people. “It’s by the grace of God that I am here, because at a young age, Canada was my dream country. And now God made it possible.”
She says she’s found Canada to be a very welcoming place, with people eager to help her family settle in.
“There’s peace here,” she said, adding that it’s such a far cry from what they’ve experienced elsewhere. “There is real peace here. People are loving.”
After decades of doing whatever she could to put food on the table for her kids, Furaha says she is now working hard to find a job that will finally provide her family some longterm stability and give her the chance to give back to the community that has welcomed them with open arms
“I’m very thankful for everything that they are doing to help us,” she said.
