Terry Pender The Record Thu., Oct. 27, 2022
WATERLOO REGION — Wasai Rahimi waited for hours Wednesday evening at Pearson airport for a family of eight to clear customs and immigration as privately sponsored Afghan refugees.
Rahimi’s Kitchener-based non-profit, iHelp International, sponsored the Wasokht family, who had been living in a refugee camp in Wahdat, Tajikistan, for three years.
Private sponsorship means iHelp International and its supporters will look after the refugee family for at least a year as they settle into their new life in Canada. At least for the time being, Ahmad Zaki Wasokht, his wife and six children are living with relatives in Brampton.
“All of the costs are paid by the community and organization that sponsored them,” said Rahimi. “We are responsible to pay for them for a year; the government has no responsibility in this.”
Rahimi filed the application for private sponsorship of the Wasokht family about a year ago with Immigration and Citizenship Canada.
A trust account was opened, and cosponsors deposited funds to help the family settle here.
The family’s safe arrival was satisfying and frustrating at the same time, said Rahimi.
After a year of paperwork and waiting, the Wasokht family spent more than six hours with immigration officials at the airport.
Rahimi watched as the family was reunited with waiting relatives on an empty, cold and rain-slicked parking lot outside the immigration offices at Pearson. Then he drove back to Kitchener to continue working on more applications.
After the Taliban seized power again in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Canadian government committed to settling 40,000 Afghan refugees here.
Afghan refugees continue to arrive in small groups, largely unnoticed, as governments and media focus on the plight of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion of their country.
But so far, 22,915 Afghans have arrived in Canada under several different programs since August 2021. These include government-assisted refugees, privately sponsored refugees, others who came under a family reunification program, a smaller number for interpreters and others who helped the Canadian Army in Afghanistan, and the families of interpreters.
Immigration and Citizenship Canada says about 415 government-assisted refugees and 240 privately sponsored refugees have arrived in Kitchener. Outside of Toronto, Kitchener has received one of the highest numbers of Afghans.
Another 55 privately sponsored Afghans came to Waterloo and 60 went to Guelph. About 435 government-assisted and 170 privately sponsored arrived in Hamilton.
The Wasokht family fled Afghanistan in October 2019 after the Taliban began threatening the family.
The family fled less than a year before the Taliban regained power amid the chaotic withdrawal of western troops. Ahmad worked for a group affiliated with the Toronto-based Aga Khan Foundation. His wife was a schoolteacher. Their work made them targets of the Taliban who menaced Afghans like the Wasokhts long before the American-led forces pulled out.
The Wasokhts also had a subsistence farm, and the Taliban seized all of their sheep and demanded thousands of dollars for the return of the livestock. The family decided to flee.
For more than 10 years, iHelp International worked to help women in Afghanistan with training programs to equip them for work outside the home. Since the Taliban’s return to power, iHelp pivoted and now works to help Afghan refugees come to Canada.
Normally, refugees must be in a third country that is not in Afghanistan, and they must be registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Beginning Oct. 17, Ottawa waived the requirement for UN registration and agreed to take in 3,000 without that document over the next year. So Rahimi is scrambling to complete applications to sponsor some of them.
“Lots of people rushed to us to help them, to sponsor their families,” said Rahimi. “We have submitted 17 applications.”