DONATE YOUR TIME

The first month will be time consuming and demanding. The family will come to a new place and start a new life. However, as the time goes, the need for your support will be reduced. There is allready many support for refugees arriving at Montreal and the Refugee Sponsorship of the Greater Montreal will help you made these connections. This is a non-exhausite list of the activty you and/or your group should expect to realize:

• Meet the family at the airport and escort them to accommodation
• Assist the family in finding housing and ensuring the costs for housing are covered
• Make sure that the family as enough clothing, furnishings and food
• Assist the family with for the appropriate health coverage
• Give a general orientation to the city and its transportation system to the family
• Make sure children are register to in a school and parents in a French as second language
• Help to fill in the knowledge gaps that everyone experiences when they move to a new city or country
• Help members of the family find appropriate training or employment

FINANCES (ANTICIPATE EXPENCES)

A refugee family of four (2 minor kids and 2 parents) will require a minimum of about $22,000 for support for a year; a family of five(3 minor kids and 2 parents), about $24,000 (for more details about the cost you can visit the Quebec's immigration website). This is roughly equivalent to Social Assistance payments. The start up money will be used to uy household items, such as beds and pots and pans, and other items that the refugees might not have, such as winter clothing. At the beginning the start up cost are housing deposits, furniture, utilities, clothing, etc. Housing, food and transportation will be ongoing expenses.

Smaller families involve lower costs. These costs can be reduced by donations in kind, such as by providing a place to live. A rough rule of thumb is that the cost will be equivalent to what a family on social assistance would receive. If a refugee becomes financially self-sufficient during the 12-month sponsorship period, the sponsors are not obligated to provide income support for the remainder of the sponsorship. But they must be prepared to resume assistance if the refugee ceases to be self-sufficient during their first year in Canada.

Refugees resettled in Canada are responsible for paying for their overseas medical examination, travel documents and transportation costs to Canada. They may receive a repayable loan from the government to cover these costs.
Sponsoring Groups are not responsible, unless they have co-signed loans, for any debt that a refugee incurs in Canada.
After the first twelve months, the formal sponsorship commitments end, but we hope that sponsoring groups will have created strong links with the family that will make them want to stay in touch.