CURRENT PROJECTSIAFR Canada works with churches and organizations around the world, walking alongside displaced people, helping them survive and recover. |
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Open Homes Hamilton is a ministry of IAFR which works to establish a multi-church network supporting refugee claimants in Hamilton Ontario, Canada. The strategy of Open Homes is home-based hospitality.
Each church contributes “Hosts” who offer space in their home for a newly arrived refugee claimant to live for 2 to 4 months. Churches also provide “Companions” who volunteer to provide settlement support and friendship. The Open Homes leadership team ensures that refugee claimants have access to the information and community resources they need to navigate the refugee claim process.
Hospitality is core to the Christian faith. When the Bible speaks of hospitality, it is specifically talking about showing love to foreigners and strangers. Open Homes is a great way for Christians to live out the spiritual practice of hospitality.
Learn more about Open Homes Hamilton.
ACROSS CANADA
Refugee Student SupportIAFR Canada is involved in welcoming and supporting students who have lived refugee experience, as they come to Canadian Colleges and Universities as new Permanent Residents!
The goal of this emerging initiative is to link each student with caring people and church congregations who will support them socially, emotionally, practically, and spiritually. This will hopefully ease each one's challenging transition from life in often-difficult refugee settings to life in the sometimes isolated and usually cold Canadian environment.- Interested? Have Questions? We'd love to help you find out if there are any students coming to your community, and give you an opportunity to become involved. Please contact us.
WINNIPEG, MB
Refugee Support
In Winnipeg, Manitoba, IAFR partners with local churches and organizations to provide pastoral support and trauma care for refugees and refugee claimants. Working very closely with our partner Naomi House, a home for refugee claimants to Winnipeg, IAFR has established a number of trauma care healing groups in the city, and also has worked one-on-one with individuals in need of trauma counselling.
IAFR also works with churches in Winnipeg to help them better understand how they can more effectively come alongside refugees in their city.
TORONTO, ON
The Peoples House
The Peoples House is a ministry of The Peoples Church in Toronto, Canada, and is supported by the IAFR team. The Peoples House was created in response to the increased demand for safe housing for refugee claimants in Toronto. The Peoples Church has responded to this need by providing a safe home for approximately 8 to 14 refugee claimants at a time who would otherwise have no safe place in Toronto. Residents stay at the house for approximately 4 months while they go through the initial stages of the refugee claim process and get established in their new city and country.
The house provides a safe environment, as well as physical, spiritual and emotional support for everyone who lives there. The ministry also provides an opportunity for people to build friendships with their fellow residents as well as church volunteers, while offering practical help with the many challenges that face new arrivals to Canada.
Learn more about The Peoples House.
PETERBOROUGH, ON
Selah House
Selah House, Peterborough is a ministry of The People’s Church in partnership with IAFR Canada, that provides temporary housing for refugee claimants, assists them in the process of claiming refugee status, and helps them settle in their next home.
Selah is a Hebrew word that means “pause.” It is used in the Psalms to give people the space to reflect on what came before, and what may be coming next. This is our hope for those who stay in Selah House—that it will be a space for them to rest, to find meaning in what they have been through, and to prepare for the next stage in their lives.
UGANDA
Trauma Healing
IAFR Canada works closely with our partner, Global Mental Health Alliance (GMHA)/I Live Again Uganda, to bring support to refugees in Uganda, through the provision of Trauma Counseling, Faith Based Support, Resettlement, and Community Development to individuals, families and communities affected by the 23 year civil war that impacted the northern region of the country. Presently, Uganda has welcomed the most refugees on the continent of Africa.
The majority of refugees in Uganda are from South Sudan. The focus of GMHA's services to refugees from South Sudan is mental health/psychosocial support in the Palabek Refugee Camp in Lamwo, Uganda. Trauma Healing Programs are also provided in villages that were directly affected by the civil war, as well as in the Acholi Quarter, an urban displacement community found in Kampala.
In addition, The Potter's House is an exciting new partnership initiative between IAFR Canada and GMHA. Site plans have been prepared and the development of the 23 acres of land in Uganda's northern region has begun. The Potter's House will be a place of encounter for individuals and families that are in need of counseling. The time that individuals will have at The Potter’s House will bring hope, healing and identity through various trauma counseling and therapeutic services, including music, art, pottery and play.
Lastly, in 2020 GMHA and IAFR identified the fact that, due to crowded conditions, difficulties accessing soap and water, and many underlying preexisting health conditions, refugees living in refugee camps were particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. We worked together to supply soap to residents of the Palabek Camp. The soap distribution was coordinated along with the UNHCR, and focused on supporting the most vulnerable refugees, including pregnant women and mothers with babies, as well as malnourished children.
Due to restrictions and isolation, lack of food also became an enormous need. IAFR and GMHA worked together to provide food, as well as soap, for those living in the Acholi Quarter.
Water on The Potters House land!
Play therapy with the child refugees in Palabek.
MALAWI
INUA
INUA advises governments on the development of healthy refugee policies centred on self-reliance, participation and sustainability. They lobby and campaign for better laws for refugees and asylum seekers, and support governments and their partners to strategize and implement refugee integration plans.INUA was founded by Innocent Magambi, a refugee with 15+ years of experience in refugee advocacy, community development and strategic integration planning.
DZALEKA REFUGEE CAMP
Population 60,000 and growing
A Crisis
Dzaleka is experiencing a food shortage/crisis. Malawi’s policies towards refugees are very restrictive: refugees are not permitted to work or move outside the camp. In fact, an estimated 8,000, many who were operating successful businesses who resided in rural and urban towns across the country were forcibly re-encamped in March of 2023. This endangers the lives of thousands of residents of the camp. Every one of the refugees is completely reliant on food aid and other external assistance for survival. Women and children are in great danger, and many women engage in prostitution in order to feed their children.
The need for sustainable and durable solutions is urgent.LIFE Gardens
The Dzaleka Life Garden Project was initiated in response to this desperate situation. This gardening project operates under the oversight of our partners on the ground, INUA and There is Hope Malawi, and in collaboration with Thrive for Good, a Canadian non-profit organization with a focus on training and equipping people to sustainably grow healthy organic food around the world.
Thrive for Good teaches a select group of church leaders and other community leaders in Dzaleka how to implement the Life Garden project. They learn how to farm small patches of land (as small as a living room), called Life Gardens. The crops support the refugee gardeners and their families. Despite refugees' challenges and hardships in the camp, many have found ways to thrive and positively impact their community, and this project is a shining example of that.
The Life Garden project was started in March 2023 and to date, a new cohort of gardeners has been trained every 3 months, and are receiving fresh produce from the gardens. It is a tremendously re-humanizing thing to be able to grow your own food!
The Life Garden leadership team has taken ownership of this project and are dreaming of all the strategic ways they can equip their neighbours with the life-giving skills they have acquired.HPIC
Through our partnership with There is Hope Malawi and HPIC (Health Partners International of Canada), we are able to send shipments of Humanitarian Medical Kits valued at $120,000 to the health clinic in the camp, which serves both refugees and the host community in a catchment area of over 80,000 people.
LEBANON
It is a challenging time for Lebanon and everyone living and serving in the country. The financial crisis is characterized by shortages: gas, electricity, medicine, supplies, among others. Despite these circumstances, our partners at the Beirut Nazarene Church (BNC) continue to reach out to the needy Syrian refugees in Beirut’s Sin el Fil and Karm el Zeitoun neighbourhoods. Also, with more Lebanese finding themselves living under the poverty line, the church has expanded its ministries to bless the local Lebanese community as well.
STEP
BNC runs a school in their community for Syrian refugee children who have missed years of education due to war in their homeland. There are currently more than 110 primary-school-aged children enrolled in this transitional education program.
BALASSAN
This counseling and medical centre offers no cost medical help and trauma therapy to 400 patients each month.
LOVING HANDS
This sewing social enterprise which was launched in 2020 trains ten women from a refugee background every quarter, teaching them sewing skills, mentoring and discipling them at the same time. This social enterprise initiative includes a storefront to sell their products, increase the revenue and work towards making the enterprise self-sustainable.GREECE
One of our more recent partnerships is with Eurorelief, on the island of Lesvos in Greece. Located 16 km from Turkiye, Lesvos is a major entry point for refugees crossing the Aegean Sea into Europe. Currently Mavrovouni provides shelter for approximately 2,300 people from many places, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Palestine, Syria, Congo, and Eritrea.
IAFR Canada is involved with the organization Eurorelief, helping to oversee their recovery work within Mavrovouni refugee camp. This means support and oversight over Eurorelief’s education, social care, men’s engagement, women’s engagement, vocational training, resident-volunteer and translator care, and skills development programs.
MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA
Bridges of Hope
Our partners work to love and welcome people whose lives have been shattered by war, conflict, and natural disaster in the Middle East. They work with local faith communities in some of the most challenging humanitarian situations on the globe to provide practical and life-giving hope. Their main focus is on building up local leaders among refugees and host communities so that grassroot plans can emerge and flourish.
Middle East Women's Ministry
Twice a year Insaf Safou leads a team to the Middle East, to host a series of conferences for refugee women. In addition, she spends time with the two social enterprises she started with local partners, Hopeful Hands in Erbil, Iraq, and Loving Hands in Lebanon.
PRAYER PILGRIMAGES
Workers and volunteers from IAFR conduct periodic prayer pilgrimages to important locations along the refugee highway both in Canada and internationally. These are learning-focused visits where team members can witness, discern, and pray about what is happening in the refugee world. These have included a trip to Mexico, and regular visits to the Canada/USA border at Fort Erie.
INTERNATIONAL
MEXICO
In 2019, IAFR Canada and 24-7 Prayer Canada co-led a Prayer Pilgrimage to the southern border of Mexico. It was a week of listening, learning and praying into what God was doing among people who were making their way north with the hope of safety, and those who were opening their hearts to new friends.
CANADA
Fort Erie, ON and Emerson, MB
This particular pilgrimage is intended to bring Christians together to be physically present in a strategic place for refugees- the Canada-US border. It is time set apart to intercede and to actively listen to God and those we meet along the way. It is a communal experience, a bringing together of spiritual gifts and hearts to hear from God as we pray and learn together.
Check our "Events" Page to see dates for upcoming Prayer Pilgrimages and register to join us!
