MOSAIC Awarded Refugee Readiness Funds

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VANCOUVER – The BC Government has announced that MOSAIC will lead the Metro Vancouver Refugee Response Team (RRT).  The organization will convene a community RRT comprised of 38 diverse memberships, to include:  private sponsorship groups; settlement service agencies; healthcare providers; education organizations; social service agencies; the business sector; Syrian community; and municipal staff to identify and prioritize community refugee service needs, and develop a coordinated Community Refugee Response Action Plan to address urgent, short-term needs or issues in support of refugees.

The $107,655 funding for the Metro Vancouver area includes Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Richmond, Tsawwassen, and Tri-Cities.

Sherman Chan, Director of Family and Settlement Services, commented that “MOSAIC has long been known within the settlement and resource sector as a collaborative organization.  While we have been praised for the quality of our work with newcomers and refugees over the years, I believe that our many partnerships and support from other community agencies is the reason we were chosen to lead the Metro Vancouver team.”

The MOSAIC- led RRT will prepare an action plan in March for submission to the BC government for approval and implementation in April 2016.

“The focus of our work will be to strengthen the receiving communities, using partnerships to enhance the integration process for the refugees”, said Chan.  Through the RRT’s collaborative efforts and its broad spectrum of service providers, MOSAIC will be able to coordinate a collective response to the identified needs and gaps in services.

MOSAIC has been actively working with refugees for many years and since the start of the Syrian crisis, has been offering comprehensive support -and serving as a focal point – to private sponsors as well as delivering on-site refugee support settlement services.