ANNUAL REPORT 2018

“We are very grateful to all our supporters for helping us to keep walking with refugees and other precarious populations during 2018. Thanks to you we were able to provide information for refugee claimants and for people who need support in regards to their immigration status and how they can further their situation in Canada.

    Access to Education was one of the main achievements for us. We were able to send 17 youth with precarious immigration status to post-secondary education. In general the FCJ Youth Network and the Access to Education team have had an exceptional year, and look forward to the new projects on 2019.

The increase in the number of people arriving in Toronto continued to impact FCJ Refugee Centre and the City in general. The pressures on the City’s emergency shelter system included an increased number of refugee claimants needing shelter during 2018.We continued working with the Refugee Houses, the City of Toronto,  refugees and migrants to find shelter. Also we partnered with St. Clair Multi-Faith Affordable Housing, we were able to secure funding for a housing worker and a housing allowance. We were able to accommodate five families, one of which was a group of five young siblings from Somalia. In our own houses we managed to shelter 50 women and 6 children in  2018. The majority of them were from Uganda, Nigeria, Colombia, Kenya, Mexico, Cuba, Croatia, and Egypt.

Another large program that we keep running is the Primary Care Clinic, serving people who don’t have access to healthcare. We had a psychiatrist  assisting people with mental health issues. The psychiatrist was also providing refugee claimants with psychological reports and assessments for their claim.

    Public education and the accessibility of information is a key part of the services we provide. The programs included workshops about human trafficking given in rural areas. FCJ has expanded the anti-human trafficking network, and one of our most successful services was the Migrant Worker’s Mobile program. We have a phone number so migrant workers can communicate and contact us directly. We have been helping people mostly who are victims of labour trafficking, and we do this through trainings, outreach, and working with a network of other organizations throughout Ontario.”

Find out more about the co-directors’ reflections on the services and programs implemented by FCJ Refugee Centre during 2018 : click here

Annual Report 2018

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *