Our Organization
The FCJ Refugee Centre is incorporated and is registered as a charitable organization. We have a Board of Directors, one Founder, two Co-Executive Directors, one Senior Director, four managers, 11 coordinators, 20 full and part-time staff, and several volunteers and placement students. We offer temporary accommodation to women and children refugee claimants, workshops on various aspects of the refugee/immigration process, and information/assistance and referrals to all uprooted people.
Mission and Mandate
The mission of the FCJ Refugee Centre:
FCJ Refugee Centre helps up-rooted people overcome the challenges of rebuilding their lives in Canadian society. With an open door approach, the Centre offers an integrated model of refugee protection, settlement services and education, including shelter for women and their children.
The FCJ Refugee Centre has a mandate to assist refugees and other uprooted people in re-establishing their lives and integrating into Canadian society by:
- Offering inclusive and timely counseling and support, including interpretation, referral to legal assistance, employment training, programs on Canadian culture and life, and other educational workshops
- Providing temporary shelter for women and children
- Collaborating with relevant organizations to deliver popular education about the protection of the human rights and dignity of up-rooted people.
Structure
Operating a project like the FCJ Refugee Centre requires people with a strong vision about the work of refugee organizations (the Board), people who are able to make this vision a reality (the Staff and Volunteers), and people who support the vision through their generous donations.
Board of Directors
Sharry Aiken
President
Sharry Aiken is a law professor and Academic Director of the Graduate Diploma in Immigration and Citizenship Law at Queen’s University. Earlier in her career she was president of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) and the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic. Sharry is an active member of the CCR’s Legal Affairs Committee, co-editor of the PKI Global Justice Journal, and former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Refuge. Prior to her appointment at Queen’s, Sharry was a staff lawyer at South Etobicoke Community Legal Services and the Refugee Law Office in Toronto. She worked closely with late FCJ Refugee Centre co-director Francisco Rico-Martínez on the “Refugee Help in Refugee Hands” workshops. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of FCJ Refugee Centre since 2021 and has served as President since 2023.
Lois Anne Bordowitz
Past – President
Sr. Lois Anne Bordowitz is a member of the Sisters, Faithful Companions of Jesus, a small international congregation. In her 60 years as an FCJ she has had a variety of assignments, including teaching, missionary in Sierra Leone for 10 years, and social justice ministry, including work with refugees in Calgary and in Toronto. In Sierra Leone, Lois Anne was a facilitator for a development education program used extensively in Africa. Sr. Lois Anne volunteers one day a week at the FCJ Refugee Centre and one day a week at the Toronto Immigration Holding Centre, where she has helped to maintain an NGO presence for almost 30 years. She also works with Becoming Neighbours, a ministry of accompaniment of newcomers to Canada.
Yosief Araya
Secretary
Yosief Araya works with Catholic Crosscultural Services (CCS) as the Director of the Refugee Sponsorship Training Program (RSTP) — a national program that provides training and support to refugee sponsors across Canada (except Quebec). He has worked in the refugee protection sector, particularly in the Private Refugee Sponsorship Program (PSR) field, for the last 20 years. Yosief has assumed various leadership positions, including becoming a founding board member of Lifeline Syria, a co-chair of the Overseas Protection and Resettlement Working Group of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), and a member of the NGO Government Committee on Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program. He has appeared as a conference presenter at local, national, and international events and acted in various consultation capacities on refugee resettlement matters. Yosief received The Libermann Award for volunteering with the Refugee Ministry of the Spiritans of the TransCanada Province.
Jehad Aliweiwi
Treasurer
Jehad Aliweiwi is a strategic thinker with more than 25 years of experience in senior leadership roles in social, settlement, philanthropic, and community service organizations. Since January 2014, Jehad has held the position of Executive Director with Laidlaw Foundation. For 10 years before that, he was the Executive Director of Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office, a multi-service agency in Toronto. Before that, he was Regional Director, of the Metro Region of Catholic Cross-Cultural Services. Jehad also worked with the Canadian Arab Federation for eight years, as Race Relations Officer and, later, as Executive Director. He was a Trustee of the Ontario Science Centre and a board member of Fred Victor Services. Currently, he serves on the Boards of the Arab Community Centre of Toronto and FCJ Refugee Centre. In 2010 Jehad was the recipient of the Local Hero Award from the Canadian Urban Institute and the 2002 City of Toronto William P. Hubbard Race Relations Award.
Sheriff Alimi
Board Member
Sheriff Oladimeji Alimi is a program/project manager and the founder of Africkonect foundation. He was a former employee and a member of the FCJ Refugee Centre youth network. Sheriff is committed to community engagement and social impact, leading initiatives to support immigrant’s integration, youth empowerment, and community development.
Luisa Bayona
Board Member
Luisa Bayona is a Registered Practical Nurse and Mental Health Counsellor at Mennonite New Life Centre (MNLC), where she has worked since 2021. Originally from Colombia, she completed her professional training in nursing and psychology and gained experience in healthcare and community support before immigrating to Canada in 2018. In 2020, she completed the Bridging Program for Women at York University’s School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. She has also completed training in Strong Minds Strong Kids (Psychology Canada) and Compassion-Focused Therapy. Through her work at MNLC, she has collaborated with organizations such as Learning Enrichment Foundation (LEF) and Employment Ontario through the HOPES program, facilitating workshops and connecting community members with resources that support labour market integration and community engagement. Currently, she is involved in a project in partnership with Macaulay Child Development Centre, supporting families through education, resource navigation, and workshops that promote healthy child development and family health. A former participant in FCJ Refugee Centre’s transitional housing program, Luisa remains committed to advancing its mission of supporting newcomers and refugees.
Nergis Canefe
Board Member
Professor Nergis Canefe possesses extensive global academic leadership and institutional governance experience. As President of the International Association for Forced Migration Studies, she steers strategic direction and global conference planning across international borders. At York University, her administrative impact is long-established; she served as Associate Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies and holds a cross-appointment across five complex graduate programs, including Osgoode Hall Law School. Her university-wide governance includes elected roles on the York Senate and Faculty of Graduate Studies Council, driving academic planning, budget allocations, and equity reforms. Globally, she provides strategic oversight on international funding panels, like the Lives in Dignity Grant Facility, and serves as an advisor for top-tier universities in the US, Canada, India, and Turkey. Her extensive editorial stewardship completes a profile suited for senior director-level and academic administrative roles.
Zahra Hojati
Board Member
Dr. Zahra Hojati holds a doctoral degree in Higher Education/Women and Gender Studies at OISE/ University of Toronto. Her research explores the intersection of gender with race, class, religion, and other social inequalities, aiming to elucidate the intricate dynamics of “identity, home, and belonging” and the resilience of racialized immigrant women. In 2013, she authored the book Between 2 Rocks, Iran-Canada: Iranian Immigrant Women Speak Out, subsequently translated into Farsi in 2018. Zahra has the experiences of working at IRCC (Immigration, Refugee Citizenship of Canada) along with actively engaged in various charitable endeavors at national and international level, holding board positions in non-profit organizations such as MAGO (Multicultural Action Group for Orphans), and FCJ Refugee Centre. Her involvement as a research associate at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University focuses on understanding the repercussions of war and conflict zones on refugee and immigrant women and their families.
Seema Kawar
Board Member
Seema Kawar is a Supervising Lawyer at Downtown Legal Services, University of Toronto, where she oversees the Housing Law Division. She earned her LLB from the University of Bristol and her LLM in International Development Law and Human Rights from the University of Warwick, both in the United Kingdom. She has a diverse international background, having worked on women’s rights issues in Jordan and with the Human Rights Council at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. Since moving to Toronto in 2015, she has focused on refugee and immigration issues and practiced housing law within Ontario’s community clinic system, serving some of Toronto’s most vulnerable populations during the housing crisis. In her recent role at the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR), Seema advocated for the right to housing through policy and law reform, contributing to legal and policy submissions to various levels of government and international bodies.
Joe Mihevc
Board Member
Joe Mihevc has been a city councillor for the former City of York and the City of Toronto for 28 years (1991-2018 and 2022). Among other positions, he has served as Deputy Mayor of the City of York, Chair of the Board of Health, Chair of the Community Development Committee, Chair of the Taskforce on Access and Equity, Vice Chair of the TTC, and Vice Chair of the Budget Committee. His expertise is in the area of municipal governance and public policy, public health, community development, community engagement, housing policy, economic development, urban planning and redevelopment, sustainability, poverty reduction, transit planning, and newcomer resettlement. He is currently Principal with Mihevc Consulting and Mediation where he uses his municipal experience and relationships to help developers and city-builders navigate civic processes to promote exciting municipal projects. He is also a sessional lecturer at York University teaching in the area of urban studies. Joe has a Ph.D. (in Theology and Social Ethics) and has decades of experience teaching at the university level, including serving as the Director of the Globalization of Theology Program at the Toronto School of Theology and St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, a program that sent students to Peru and Mexico.
Alejandra Priego
Board Member
Alejandra Priego, BA, MHSc is currently the Clinical Lead Manager for the Family Medicine and Urban Family Health Team at St. Joseph’s, Unity Health Toronto. She has held a range of progressive leadership roles across clinical care, education, and management. She brings extensive experience leading community-based programs that improve access to health and mental health services across the primary and acute care continuum. Her work has focused on developing services that address systemic barriers affecting seniors, women, children, and families. Alejandra has also collaborated with colleagues and leaders through coalitions, networks, and boards to advance equality and social justice, with particular attention to immigrant, refugee, newcomer, and other underserved communities. She believes that dignity, unity, and equality for all are achieved through mutual support, the sharing of knowledge and experience, and the use of available resources in service of the common good—even when that requires challenging the status quo.
Daniel Quesada-Rebolledo
Board Member
Daniel Quesada-Rebolledo is a Supervisor with the Region of Durham’s Social Services Department, where he leads the Regional Street Outreach Program (RSOP) — a 24/7 outreach team supporting people experiencing unsheltered homelessness across Durham Region. He brings frontline-to-systems experience in crisis response, coordinated access, and partnership-building across healthcare, shelters, and municipal services. Daniel has also spent years supporting temporary foreign workers across Ontario through rights-based outreach and service coordination with TNO – The Neighbourhood Organization and Horizons of Friendship, helping build programs that connect workers to health, legal, and social supports. He previously served on the Board of Directors of the Northumberland County Housing Corporation, contributing to governance and affordable housing initiatives. Canadian-born to parents from Costa Rica and Chile, Daniel has a personal awareness of the realities and costs of migration and forced displacement. He speaks English, French, and Spanish.
Alberto Sarthou
Board Member
Alberto Sarthou was born in the Philippines and speaks English, Spanish and Tagalog. He graduated from De La Salle University in the Philippines with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Bachelor of Science in Accounting. He then finished a master’s in business administration at Harvard Business School. He worked in Nicaragua and Mexico before immigrating to Canada in 1974. He started working at Citibank Canada and the Tanenbaum Group and then decided to work in the non-profit sector, where he worked for the next 30 years. He served as Finance Manager for several NGOs in the areas of health and mental health, social justice, literacy, art, migrant justice and religious organizations, ending his career at KAIROS in 2016. He also has a Master in Divinity from University of Toronto. He served on the board of MidToronto Community Centre and was a founding Board Member and Chair of the Finance Committee of the Toronto Community Care Access Center. He has been retired since 2016.