In my job at United Way, I get to meet people who have the power to change me just by sharing their story. Looking through a window into their world can alter my line of sight. It’s not always a world I can fully understand, but it’s enough to challenge my perceptions more than any newspaper article or novel ever has. Today, I met Sandra. Young, quiet, single mother-of-two. “How long have you been here, in Canada?” I ask. “6 months,” she replies. Her English is good. She’s attending English classes. An immigrant from England, I remember what it was like to have been here only 6 months. Everything is new. Nowhere is there a reference point for anything, not yet. How much harder would it be not to know the language? We talk about her two boys. Moses, with a smile the size of Africa, is four years of age, and his little brother, Alex, is 14 months. Sandra wears her affection for them in her eyes. I ask Sandra to tell me what brought them to Surrey, to this Hand in Hand program. Part of United Way’s Early Years Refugee Program, Hand in Hand helps little boys and little girls fleeing war and misery to reconnect to the good things in life, giving them a solid foundation so that they may play to the Canadian tune and dance their way to success in their new home. “I was forced to flee Congo because of the war”, Sandra tells me. “They killed my father.” People who talk of personal tragedy often do so calmly, distantly. Her words bring the face of my own father to mind. He is far away from me, but safe. I’ll call him tomorrow. “Everybody was running. I ran with my brother…but I don’t know where my brother is right now. We were running. That place, it was crazy.” As she describes this, Sandra is looking at her hands, or rather beyond her hands back to the time her twelve-year-old brother was holding them. She’s rubbing them together, is she feeling his touch? Again, and again, she tells me that she does not know where he is. Despite everything she has been through Sandra continues to face challenges. Her family survives on $1,400 a month with $900 going on rent. After bills, clothes, diaper and bus money, there isn’t much left for food. But her culture and traditions have taught her to keep on smiling and to hold on tightly to her hopes and dreams. “I hope a lot of things. Maybe to look for my family that got lost, my brother. I so want to study. I want to be a nurse,” says Sandra. For her boys, “I hope they will learn well. Maybe someday they will work in the Parliament.” Helping families, like Sandra’s, achieve their dreams is what United Way and our partners in community do every day of the year, thanks to the support of people like you. 1 in 5 BC children lives in poverty. We help break the cycle of poverty by ensuring children get the best start in life. We do this by investing in early learning, skilled parenting and caring services, like the Early Years Refugee Program which ensures refugee children fleeing war, violence and severe poverty are ready to learn and succeed by the time they go to school.
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