Saint John community rallies to bring grandmother, aunt to grieving Syrian family

Members of a Saint John community are trying to reunite members of a grieving Syrian family with their aunt and grandmother, who are currently living in Lebanon.

The Hleilos were among the first Syrian families to seek refuge in Saint John in 2015. Two years later, after getting married and becoming a father, the eldest son Mohammad Hleilo died by suicide at the age of 21.

His mother, Kawkab Jamal Hejazi, said she felt as though she lost everything after Mohammad's death.

"I felt like life became hopeless for me," she said in Arabic. "The world became bleak, that no matter where I go there's no good luck in life."

Mohammad left behind his wife Mariam and his son, who was three months old when his father died.

Hejazi said her children have been seeing a grief counselor, and she is also seeing a therapist to help her cope. But she believes having her mother and sister close by would be an essential part of the family's healing process. 

"When they said they will bring my sister and mother I felt the world hasn't ended, there's still hope in life," she said. "That with good people around, my life isn't over."

Taking responsibility 

Hejazi has five children, ranging in age from six to 24 years old. They left Homs, Syria, in 2011 and spent a few years in Lebanon with Hejazi's mother and sister, who has two children of her own.

Fifteen-year-old Hamza Hleilo said he's taken on most of the translating responsibilities since his brother died, trying to help out his father and the rest of the family.

He said his mother needs her family beside her, but he also needs his grandmother, who's in her early sixties.

"I don't want to lose her far away. I want her to live with me the last few years," he said. "She would do the biggest difference in my life … sometimes she gives me advice, advice no one can make … except grandmas."

Hejazi said leaving her mother behind was the hardest part of coming to Canada.

"My mother raised us with kindness," she said, "When she comes here maybe she will remind me of what I lost, maybe she'll be a son and a mother and a father … She's everything for me."

Kendra Ball is a family friend who helped with the family's Canadian sponsorship, led by the Kennebecasis Baptist Church. She said she's become "best friends" with them since their settlement, and was deeply affected by Mohammad's death in October. 

"It was really out of the blue," she said. "I think he was just holding so much in from Syria, then just all of the stress and everything changing, being married, becoming a dad and then there was just so much going on and then just, it was too much."

Sponsorship is a challenge

The Hleilo family were sponsored through the Blended Visa Office-Referred (BVOR) Program, which matches the most vulnerable refugees identified by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) with private sponsors in Canada. There is no cap on how many refugees can be sponsored through that program.

But Paul Carline, director of intercultural ministries for Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada, said family reunification, or choosing a particular family to sponsor is more strict — and has more demand.

"When it comes to naming specific people, every sponsorship agreement holder organization is given a cap," he said. "So our organization gets about 50 [individuals] a year."

He said his organization represents dozens of community groups and churches in the Atlantic region, and there are over 100 people on the waiting list, including Hejazi's family.

While they're on the list, Ball said the community must have $30,000 to pay for the costs of resettlement.

Ball said they have $15,000 and are trying to fundraise the rest. She said it's a long process even after the money is available, as processing a family takes a whole year, but she's confident the two families will be reunited eventually.

"We're 100 percent sure it's going to happen it's just more when is it going to happen," she said.