In the News: Concerning Immigrants in Canada and Refugees in Africa

Posted by leungregine - Posted on 06 July 2011

A series of articles concerning different cultural groups were published by the Globe and Mail this week. 

These articles shed light to possible immigration trend of Canada in the near future.  Along the same line of thoughts on reaching out to our diversified community, how can we respond to these changes and people’s needs?  How can we know people for who they really are?  Are we willing to break down barriers of hostility that separate people thinking in terms of “us and them”?  These are some reflective questions that guide my thoughts as I read the following articles.


 Somali refugee crisis killing children, UN says (July 6, 2011)

The Horn of Africa is currently experiencing one of the worst droughts since the early 1950s.  Children are dying from hunger and exhaustion as their families fled Somalia in June due to the unending violence in their country.   

 

Islam in Canada - The Gap between two solitudes (July 4, 2011) 

      An Article about a young student in Canada and her experience -
    Key words:

  •      Canadian Muslims
  •      Recent Sunni Immigrant from Pakistan
  •      Canadian-born Somali


South Asian immigrants are transforming Toronto (July 4, 2011)

  • Members of the South Asia Groups are already the biggest visible-minority group in the Greater Toronto Area
  • There were 684,000 as of the 2006 census, a couple of hundred thousand more than the second biggest group: Chinese.
  • Their numbers are expected to nearly triple by 2031, reaching around 2.1 million.
  • This is a huge demographic shift for Toronto.
  • Major South Asia groups came from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, parts of India like Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu (mainly Sikhs from the Punjab)

 

There are some countries that we cannot get a visa to enter their countries as missionaries, but many of the hard to reach people groups are living right here as our neighbours.  How can we, as Christian students, help communities to be more accepting of people from different cultural backgrounds?  If you have any thoughts on these articles, please tell us!  You can register and login to our web page to leave a comment!  Thanks!