MONTREAL – Tamar Sarkis has been living in Montreal for four months.
She fled Syria with her family, first to Lebanon and then finally to Canada.
“In Syria, there’s a war and life is so bad,” Sarkis told Global News.
When Sarkis and her family arrived, they were introduced to CACI, a community centre for immigrants.
The centre helped her husband find a job, enrolled her daughter in school and provided Sarkis with French classes.
READ MORE: Trudeau meets with cabinet to discuss Syrian refugee resettlement plan
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Earlier this week, Canada’s Immigration Minister reaffirmed the commitment to welcome 25,000 refugees to Canada by the end of this year.
There are reports that Quebec will be accepting nearly one quarter of the refugees – more than 5,700 people, including about 2,000 children between the ages of four and 17.
Provincial Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil wouldn’t confirm the information when asked about it on Thursday.
Weil said Quebec is willing and able to accept extra refugees, but the province needs to be prepared.
“We need to plan,” she said.
“We need to plan for the arrival of these extra refugees that we’d already announced in September, that we were able to take in.”
READ MORE: English community shut out of Quebec’s Syrian refugee plan, says LBPSB
Organizations like CACI are stepping up to the plate to help ease the transition.
Anait Aleksanian said the centre helps welcome integration services, find employment, offer English and French courses and offer a daycare for children.
Since 2014, CACI has welcomed 500 Syrian refugees and they said they’re excited to help even more, even if that means working through the holidays and the New Year.
Sarkis, who is now a volunteer at CACI, said the organization is focusing one family at a time to give them back a little bit of what was lost.
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