When the damned of the Earth have nowhere left to go, they find refuge in the shelter of Kicha Estimé. This social worker is nicknamed “Mother Teresa of Montreal North”: she left a well-paid job to devote herself entirely to welcoming asylum seekers, without any help from the state.
The La Traverse centre, housed in a former presbytery, is buzzing with activity on this Friday morning. About twenty residents, from Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala and African countries, catch their breath on the two floors of the building: an agricultural worker who has been mistreated by his employer, a mother and her newborn baby, a distraught youngster who narrowly escaped eviction, a couple who arrived last month via Roxham Road (which has since been closed)…
For these people who have come from the other side of the world in search of a better life, the Kicha Estimé refuge is a bit like “the courtyard of Miracles”. Here they receive the boost that will allow them to recover.
“These people need help. Without support, many would end up on the street,” says Kicha Estimé. We meet this dynamic mother in her office cluttered with bags of clothes, boxes of diapers, food and other items donated by residents of the neighborhood.
The phone rings constantly. At the other end of the line, people who have just arrived in Quebec, disoriented in a country of which they know nothing. Kicha Estimé, her husband, her brother and a dozen volunteers offer a roof, a bed, meals and valuable advice to these people who come from afar. Most are traumatized by the journey that brought them to Montreal.
An obstacle course
” Life is not easy. You always have to fight,” says Mamie Mpunga Mbuyi, sitting on a bed in a room on the second floor of La Traverse.
The mother of four children — one of whom remained in their home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo — is exhausted. The family members’ lives have been an obstacle course since fleeing violence in their homeland five years ago.
This corpulent woman is bedridden due to a herniated disc that occurred during the family’s long journey (on foot, by bus and by boat) between Brazil and Montreal. Immobilized between four walls, she must take care of a one-and-a-half-year-old baby who suffers from hypotonia, a health problem resulting in muscle weakness. Little Jean-Bédel needs help to sit up.
Grandma Mpunga Mbuyi says she was injured falling down a mountain in Panama. Weakened, moving with difficulty, she was supported by her husband. The couple claims to have wandered in the jungle for two weeks before being rescued by villagers. Their daughter, then 9 years old, had been picked up by a group of migrants who were walking.
“It’s a miraculous trip for us,” said Mamie Mpunga Mbuyi in a soft voice. The couple and three of their children (aged one and a half, three and twelve) ended up at the La Traverse center two months ago. They had to leave their accommodation in Montreal North because the father lost his job: he must be regularly absent from work to accompany his handicapped son to Sainte-Justine hospital. He has since found another job.
“I am lucky to have a loving and responsible husband, who takes care of me and our children in addition to working. But we need respite,” says Mamie Mpunga Mbuyi. She takes care of their two preschool boys despite her failing health. Their daughter, who attends the local high school, helps out after school.
The mother of the family begins to find the time long, stuck day and night in the small bedroom. “If we had daycare for our boys, I could work. I studied computer science, I can telecommute. And we have to send money to the family taking care of our eldest daughter back home [au Congo] “, she says.
“In Survival Mode”
Kicha Estimé is doing his best to support the Congolese family – and the other residents of La Traverse -, but his means are limited. “We have no public funding. My husband and I have to go into debt to stay afloat. And we depend on volunteer work for our operation, ”says this mother of three boys, born in Montreal North.
She left her job as a security guard at the Laval Immigration Monitoring Center in the midst of a pandemic, in 2020, to devote herself to her mission: “I want to help people. Asylum seekers are among the most vulnerable people imaginable. »
Residents almost all need social services, explains Richard Edmond, Kicha Estimé’s husband. “People come into survival mode. Many have experienced trauma. And they are under stress because of their uncertain future,” says this IT consultant.
We meet Roseline Louis and her two-month-old baby in the office of La Traverse. This mother-of-two’s eyes mist up as she talks about their journey from Chile to Montreal, which culminated at Roxham Road in October 2022. The young Haitian-born woman claims to have seen migrants collapsing from exhaustion in the South American jungle. She and her husband also crossed paths with bandits armed with machetes.
“Today, things are better”, assures the mother of the family. She plans to become a hairdresser. The couple found an apartment. Roseline comes to lend a hand at the La Traverse center, where she was accommodated during her delivery. She finds here a solidarity that she greatly needs.
Don’t make waves
Jeronimo (fictitious name, because he fears reprisals), an agricultural worker originally from Guatemala in Quebec for three years, also found refuge at La Traverse last week. “My boss is a dangerous man,” he says in a mixture of Spanish, English and French.
He shows his swollen neck under the blows of his employer, according to him. The man in his thirties refuses to reveal his name or that of the farm where he worked, because he does not want to make waves. He is looking for work elsewhere — Jeronimo is lucky to have an open work permit.
“My plan is to stay here for a few days, until I find another job in agriculture. I’m lucky to have been directed here,” he said.
The residents of La Traverse were all urgently accommodated in the gymnasium of a school in the neighborhood last week, because of the power outage due to the ice storm. Not one of them complained of being a “disaster victim”.