“It’s an ongoing engagement,” says Anneke Smit of Windsor Law’s efforts regarding the ongoing Syrian (and global) refugee crisis. Dr. Smit, Associate Professor and expert in refugee and immigration law, has been spearheading the Faculty’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis.
One of the Law Faculty’s primary efforts has been the sponsorship of a Syrian family. Planning began in late Autumn 2015 to assist a family in relocating to Windsor; a campus-wide fundraising campaign was subsequently launched at the end of January 2016, and the initial monetary goal was met by April. A group of 11 faculty, staff and their partners will form the requisite “Group of 5” sponsors, while members of the Windsor Law community, including alumni and student groups, have made financial contributions.
Though the sponsored family has yet to arrive, relationships have been established with extended family members already in Windsor, and fundraising is ongoing to assist with additional expenses such as the family’s airfare to Canada.
At the same time, Smit, Professor Gemma Smyth, and law students have established a Windsor chapter of the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program, a national organization with 11 chapters across the country. The SSP is a response to the great number of private sponsorship groups who find they need help with the complicated application process, and the lawyers who want to use their legal skills to contribute to solutions to the refugee crisis. “The idea was to train lawyers to be able to work with these groups in a pro bono capacity,” says Smit. So far 1300 lawyers and law students have been trained across the country, including about 15 lawyers and 35 law students in Windsor. The SSP is still in need of volunteers, and Smit encourages lawyers, whether or not they have a background in refugee or immigration law, to consider donating some time.
The Windsor SSP is starting to see some family reunification cases – situations where members of the area’s Syrian and Iraqi communities want to form Groups of 5 to bring over family members who are refugees without a durable solution to their displacement. With this in mind, Smit says that the emphasis of the Windsor SSP has developed to include more public legal outreach, with public information sessions held in Arabic and English in the fall of 2016. “I see that as being a big part of our raison d’être,” says Smit. “We can share some of our expertise on private sponsorship with these communities. So when they do get to the point where they can bring their family members over, they know what to do.” The Multicultural Council of Windsor and Essex County (MCC) has been a key community partner for all of the Windsor SSP’s public information activities. As the only chapter in southwest Ontario, the Windsor SSP has also recently expanded to assist sponsor groups in Hamilton and London. As part of the Faculty’s increased emphasis on experiential learning, student involvement is also a key aspect of the Windsor SSP: law students work with the organization as part of Smit’s international refugee law course. “In addition to running public sessions, students are matched with lawyers and sponsor groups, and find themselves getting hands-on experience in grassroots, public interest legal work,” says Smit. “As a country we need to be building capacity to support private refugee sponsorship, a successful model which the federal government is now seeking to export to other countries. I think as law schools one of our roles is to help develop that expertise for the future.”
In related news, there will be a dedicated place for a Windsor Law social justice fellow at the UNHCR protection office in Toronto for a second year, and the law school has created a refugee student entrance scholarship. For more information on the Windsor Refugee SSP, or to donate to the Windsor Law Group of 5 Sponsorship, please contact Anneke Smit at asmit@uwindsor.ca.
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