It’s not just the US where ‘do-gooder-itis’ is overwhelming common sense. Obviously Canada is taking more refugees than it can adequately care for too! And, a school system is attempting to fill the gaps. (See Amarillo and Buffalo).
And, when Somali kids grow up like those described here (in poverty, no father), does anyone really believe that they will contribute to Canadian society in any significant way when they grow up!
Indeed! is importing poverty wise?
From The Vancouver Sun thanks again to ‘pungentpeppers’ (emphasis is mine):
It was only reluctantly that Batula Ali Ekow tells her story, prompted by Somali interpreter Deqa Mohamed who had a part to play in what, unfortunately, appears to be a commonplace drama of poverty overwhelming a refugee family in North Surrey.
Ekow, along with other Somali women — all clothed in the flowing robes and headdresses of their homeland — attend the Surrey school district’s English Language Learner Welcome Centre at 7525 King George Blvd., which offers services to help integrate immigrant and refugee families into Canadian society.
It was here — with Mohamed acting as interpreter — that Ekow and other Somali mothers were interviewed.
Her friend, Hawo Hussein Adbi, spoke of the sense of hopelessness as her older children, still at school, apply for jobs each week but never hear back, and of the struggle to feed them all while living on social assistance.
At first, Ekow will only speak generally about how she and her three school-aged children have fared.
Like the other women, she is saying how overwhelmingly grateful she is to be in Canada when Mohamed interrupts and says, “Let me speak to her in the Somali language” and a conversation ensues, at the end of which a different story emerges:
Ekow, her husband and children arrived in Canada in June 2010 as refugees, and began living on $1,600 a month. Her husband left shortly after their arrival, and so her benefits were cut to $1,025.
Rent was $900, so for seven months, until she began receiving the federal child tax credit, she had $125 a month with which to feed, clothe and care for herself and three children — what a middle-class couple might spend on dinner out without really trying.
She spoke no English, had no idea of Canadian customs, and asked no one for help. The children’s teachers, however, realized something was wrong and called Mohamed.
[….]
Surrey counsellor Judy Villeneuve agrees it is a crisis and that services available for the poor in the area and refugees who arrive there destitute are inadequate. But the city does all it can to help, she says.
It is a long article but well worth reading especially if you are one of our many Canadian readers.
