Canadian Immigration: A Syrian family’s long journey to Canada

Since Canada is inviting refugees over the past seven months, they land at a strange place with a load of emotional burden of leaving their homes and loved ones behind.

One such Syrian family’s story of Canadian immigration is shared in this article.

The Farwan family migrated to Lethbridge, Alta, Canada from Syria through Jordan.

The Farwans spent three years in Irbid, Jordan after leaving Syria due to the civil war. The family comprise of 10 members, the youngest Kawther born in Jordan two years back.

Farwans are eight siblings living with their parents. Adam, 11, made a living for the family by picking olives from a nearby olive grove and selling them. Ahmad, 18, is the eldest of all and helped to raise the family’s income by working as a mechanic.

The biggest complication was that refugees are not allowed to work in Jordan officially.

Before moving to Jordan, the family was living a simple but happy life at Daraa – the southern Syrian city, with Khalil, the family head, working as a driver to run the family. The violent protests at Daraa in March 2011 made the family to leave their home, car and beloveds. The Farwans moved to Jordan. Leaving home was not an easy decision for the family.

The family applied for Canadian immigration in November 2015, under Syrian refugee resettlement program. The family went through health and security assessment by the immigration officials with the aid of UNHCR in Jordan.

The Farwans were happy as their problems were soon going to end but destiny had something else in store. Their meeting with Canadian immigration officials got cancelled. Upset, Khalil went to UNHCR only to find that the removal of their case from the list was due to a clerical error and soon the error got fixed.

After several weeks of security checks, meetings with refugee officials and other paper work, the Farwans got approval and they flew to Canada.

January 31, 2016 was their first day in Canada. With a hope of new life, the Farwans are eager to adjust in the new culture and start a happy life.