Refugee Sponsorship Master Agreement

At the 1997 Synod, a resolution was approved authorizing the diocese to sign a Master Sponsorship Agreement with the Federal Government. The Refugee Sponsorship Agreement became effective for the diocese of Niagara on June 4, 1999. This agreement makes it possible for individual or clusters of parishes in Niagara to sponsor refugee families.

Since then, parishes in our Diocese have undertaken sponsorships for ten families representing 49 individuals (including 31 children) from Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and Columbia.

Through sponsorship, a parish or group of parishes working together can provide an opportunity that a refugee family would otherwise never have: a chance to resettle in Canada, to build a new life free of violence, fear and oppression, and to become productive members of Canadian society.

A parish often finds that the experience of sponsorship is transforming, as they work together to help someone else in such a tangible way. In the process, they gain new friendships, an understanding of another culture, and a look at the world and their own community, including so many things that we too often taken for granted, through someone else's eyes

.For more information, see www.how.to/helprefugees

"I tell you, whenever you do this for one of the least of these, you did it for me." (Matthew 25:31-44)