Pictured is Heri, 4, amazed under the snowflakes.
It’s his first snow. His first snowsuit, too. Originally from Mexico, he landed in Montreal last June with his family, who have requested asylum in Canada.
Danièle’s heart melted when Dzoara sent her pictures of her son on Wednesday.
Danièle is a recently retired nurse from Brossard. For several years, she has been trying to help newcomers as best she can. Through the Refugee Claimant Donations Montreal website, her path crossed that of several families seeking asylum, including Dzoara, her husband and their four children.
Danièle helped them settle in, asking her network to find furniture, crockery, blankets, clothes for their first winter… Like little Heri’s snowsuit offered by a charitable soul.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Dzoara and her son Heri, and Danièle, the adoptive “mom”
Dzoara, who was a teacher and photographer in Mexico, doesn’t know how her family would manage without Danièle. After five months in the country, her husband, who worked in a garage in his country of origin, has just received his work permit authorizing him to get his first job. She, not yet, because of an address error. Result: so far, once the rent has been paid, they have not had a penny left for the rest of the month. To eat, they had to rely on the Share the Warmth food bank in Pointe-Saint-Charles, for which Dzoara has only good words.
For the rest, it’s the D. D system as it gets by. D like Danièle too, who is a social safety net on her own. Her garage is overflowing with the donations she redistributes. She tries to send pictures to donors to thank them. “Look at the snowsuit you gave, the little girl has it on her back… And the furniture in the apartment of this hospitalized elderly lady, two families were able to benefit from it. »
Beyond material support, Danièle forges ties with the families she helps, supporting them in their integration process.
“Thanks to Danièle, we feel protected, sheltered,” Dzoara told me. We are so grateful to be able to count on generous people like her. This allows him to glimpse a light at the end of this difficult journey.
“Why are you doing all this for us, Danièle? “, she has already asked him.
Why ? Danièle is moved when she talks about it. She’s not religious, she says. She’s not looking for the light either. I was the one who offered to write about her in this column and she just accepted in the hope that it could make more people aware of the plight of refugees. Humans who ask for nothing better than to integrate and learn French. But they still have to be able to meet their basic needs.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Dzoara, asylum seeker, Danièle, the adoptive mother, and young Heri.
“I’ve met some really great people who are eager to contribute to our society, to settle here to provide a better life for their children. They want to work and not depend on us. »
To Dzoara who asked her why she does all this, Danièle answered this: “Me, if I had children who were forced to leave the country to be safe, to have a future, I would like that another mother in another country takes over. Me, I’m your mom on this side of America… If you’re in trouble, you call me. If you need anything, you call me. I am there like a mother. »
How do the migrants who are not lucky enough to be able to count on a rescue mother like Danièle do to make up for the increasingly large holes in our social safety net?
As evidenced by the report by my colleague Suzanne Colpron, in a context where the needs are increasingly great and the resources clearly insufficient, many are those who find themselves in situations of extreme precariousness. Community organizations lack everything. Breathless responders grapple with a misery they’ve never seen before. A woman who hasn’t eaten for four days. Families in need to whom we have to say, with regret: “Sorry! Call us back in January… Our waiting list is overflowing. »
We will no doubt repeat that Roxham Road should be closed, because we cannot “welcome all the misery in the world”…
This often brandished “solution” is not one, recalls François Crépeau, professor of law at McGill University and former UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.
If we close Roxham Road, all these people who are in very precarious situations will simply find other routes.
Putting up barriers does nothing. “There is no barrier that has worked. Look at Europe and the Mediterranean. Look at the southern border of the United States. »
Quite the opposite should be done. What we oppose by saying: “Yes, but if we welcome these people, there will be others…”
Of course there will be others, underlines François Crépeau. First, because these people need to come. Then because employers need them. “And they need them in misery to accept jobs at $5 or $7 an hour, which is half the minimum wage. In restaurants, in hospitals, in agriculture, in construction… We have to change that! »
So what ? “The only thing we can do is welcome these people with dignity,” believes François Crépeau.
How ? I will come back to it.
Because no, Danièle and the other emergency mothers won’t be able to do it alone.