Ottawa, June 20, 2018 – The Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship; the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs; and the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development, today issued this statement on World Refugee Day:

The documentary "I Am Rohingya" is coming to theatre in Ottawa (May 9), Toronto (May 11), and Waterloo (May 13). The team behind the film is partnering with local organizations in each city to host the screenings, such as Inter Pares in Ottawa, a non-governmental organization that has been working with human rights activists in Burma for decades.

"I Am Rohingya" chronicles the making of the play "I Am Rohingya" by a group of Rohingya refugee youth living in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.

Eritrean Canadian researcher Munira Abdulwasi is running a series of talks focused on raising awareness about mental health issues.

Munira Abdulwasi is a PhD candidate studying Kinesiology and Health Science at York University. Her research interests include marginalized individuals living with chronic disease and the health needs of Canadian Aboriginal veterans. She was awarded funding through the York University Agents of Change competition to implement a Health Promotion Series at TARIC Islamic Centre in Toronto.

Muslim Link interviewed Munira about her work with TARIC and why she feels mosques can be sites of health promotion on a variety of topics, particularly mental health. 

Refugee Rights Day is a day to create awareness in the public consciousness about the rights and protection of refugees in Canada. Celebrated on April 4th, this day is significant particularly for refugee claimants, because it brings attention to the advances made in the protection of refugee rights in Canada as a result of the Supreme Court’s 1985 Singh Decision. In this decision, the Supreme Court found that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the fundamental rights of refugees. The Court decided that ‘everyone’ includes refugee claimants in the sentence: ‘Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.’

Abdoul Abdi came to Canada as a refugee when he was six years old and is now facing deportation to Somalia, a country he has never lived in. Why?

Muslim Food Bank & Community Services (MFB) is a charity based in Surrey, British Columbia that provides a diversity of services to Muslims and refugees in the Greater Vancovuer area.

Muslim Link has been given permission to publish the true story of how one Baha'i refugee family was supported through MFB's Aspire Program which pairs volunteer caseworkers with families in need in order to help them navigate social services in BC.

Rohingya Canadian youth, many of whom came as refugees to Canada, have been taking the lead in pushing for justice for their people in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Rallies, fundraisers, and awareness raising events have been organized across Canada, often with young members of Canada's Rohingya community participating as speakers.

Rohingya youth, some members of the team originally involved in creating the play I Am Rohingya, co-founded the Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative, an organization which has been meeting with goverment officials in Canada and abroad to raising awareness about the plight of the Rohingya.

In October, Premier Kathleen Wynne met with members of the Rohingya refugee community and their allies in Kitchener-Waterloo, including many of the young actors from the play I Am Rohingya.

Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Canadian band The Tragically Hip, passed away on October 17, 2017 due to cancer. The Tragically Hip are one of the most beloved music groups in Canada's history. Gord Downie sang and wrote most of The Hip's songs. Through tears Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke about Gord Downie by stating: “Gord was my friend, but Gord was everyone’s friend. He knew, as great as [Canadians] were, we needed to be better than we are. Our buddy Gord, who loved this country with everything he had, and not just loved it in a nebulous ‘oh, I love Canada way,’ he loved every hidden corner, every story, every aspect of this country that he celebrated his whole life.”

Somali Canadian writer Rowda Mohamud shared the following reflection on the impact a lyric from The Tragically Hip's song Bobcaygeon, written by Gord Downie, had on her as a newcomer to Canada, after having arrived as a refugee with her family in the 1990s. The song is named after the town of Bobcaygeon, Ontario in the Kawartha Lakes region.

Bangladeshi Canadian Dr. Nabiha Islam is traveling to Bangladesh this month to provide medical relief to Rohingya refugees. She is currently fundraising online to help cover the costs of various medical services that will be offered to refugees through the charity Hope Foundation for Women and Children in Bangladesh.

Hope Foundation is a US-based charity run by the Bangladeshi diaspora. They run a 40-bed hospital in Ramu, Cox's Bazar, an area where many Rohingya refugees are settling in as it is only 10 km from the border with Myanmar.

Muslim Link interviewed Dr. Islam about why she is travelling to Bangladesh to help the Rohingya and what medical issues the refugees are facing.