‘We have a moral and global obligation’

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This article was published 21/06/2013 (4710 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The new head of Manitoba’s largest refugee settlement agency, Welcome Place, knows what it’s like to feel welcome.

When Rita Chahal’s family arrived in Prince Edward Island from India in the 1960s, church groups invited her mom to demonstrate some of her cooking and model her sari. The young Chahal went along to translate for her mom, who spoke only Hindi.

It wasn’t the first time her mom was uprooted. Her family fled to India from Pakistan during partition. They were minority Christians and became refugees.

The refugee experience left a mark on her mother, who passed it on to her children, including Chahal, the new executive director of Welcome Place:

“Take on any job and do it well.”

Chahal has her work cut out for her.

Globally, there are more refugees than at any time in nearly two decades, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported this week. Thursday was World Refugee Day.

Nationally, there’s been a major policy shift at Citizenship and Immigration Canada affecting everything from health care to settlement services.

Locally, there’s a shortage of affordable housing in Winnipeg.

The vacancy rate is hovers around zero per cent and shelter allowances haven’t kept pace with soaring rents.

It may sound like a perfect storm for someone in charge of refugee settlement but to Chahal, it’s a chance to use the skills, experiences and contacts she’s gathered since arriving in Canada.

“Now, it’s my turn to give back,” said Chahal, married with three grown children. She moved to Winnipeg after getting a science degree from Dalhousie University, where she learned to speak Punjabi while dining at the “UN” table with students from around the world. She met her husband at the Halifax university and he wanted to move to someplace sunny. The commerce grad discovered Winnipeg had the most sunshine, so he moved here.

“I followed him,” she said.

When their kids were in school, Chahal took courses and worked in the social services and arts and culture sectors. She became the general manager of the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce and served on several boards, including the Manitoba Centennial Centre Corp.

She’s hoping her experience in dealing with business and government can help Welcome Place with settlement issues.

“I don’t want to change the basis of what we do,” she said.

Chahal praised the staff and said she wants to make sure the non-profit agency is getting the most bang for its buck and has the technology it needs to move forward. She said they’ll review policies, find best practices and put in place a quality-assurance system to identify what’s working well and isn’t.

That started informally Thursday.

“We have a large family arriving and I’m following them from the moment they arrive to see what processes they go through,” she said earlier in the day.

She’s learning as she goes, she said, and wants others to learn about the work Welcome Place does, too.

“My main focus is education and awareness.” Chahal said she wants the business community and the public to know more about Welcome Place. She plans to work with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to see the new museum showcase stories of Manitoba refugees.

She wants to bring inspirational speakers such as Nobel Prize-winning banker Muhammad Yunus and media celebrity Oprah Winfrey to Winnipeg. She’s started meeting with members of the provincial government to talk about housing problems.

“Our No.1 issue is housing,” she said. The refugees Welcome Place helps may have stayed in tents for years before they arrived but they shouldn’t be expected to live in rundown, bedbug-infested surroundings here in Canada. “But many end up there because they have no choice.”

She believes business will get behind the refugee community — not just because it’s a good investment in human capital but because it’s the right thing to do, and the gap between rich and poor is growing so large it’s unsustainable.

“We can’t go backwards,” she said. “We have a moral and global obligation to serve those vulnerable populations.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca