United for Refugees prepares to award nearly $800,000 in fundraising

United for Refugees is making the switch from raising money to help Syrian refugees in Ottawa to giving out the nearly $800,000 the organization has already brought in.

The partnership between the City of Ottawa, United Way Ottawa, Community Foundation of Ottawa and Refugee 613 was unveiled in October to help fundraise for Syrian refugee settlement in the city.

• CBC Ottawa's Syrian refugee coverage
• Refugee 613, United for Refugees programs unveiled at Ottawa City Hall

On Thursday, United for Refugees announced it has raised $791,000 so far and is opening up applications for people or groups who need help raising the thousands of dollars it takes to privately sponsor a Syrian family — or for registered charities that want to host programs or events to help those refugees settle.

United Way Ottawa president and CEO Michael Allen said that the decision to begin handing out the money wasn't "triggered" by meeting a certain fundraising goal.

"We have refugees that are now here. They're beginning to put pressure on the system for all the things that we have opened the applications for: mental health supports, housing, information referrals, counselling, language training, pre-employment," said Allen on Friday.

"All of those sorts of pressures that will be felt by these newcomers to our community — that's where we want the help to go."

Job fair one idea

Allen said they've already seen significant traffic to their online application system, and with a March 18 application deadline, they want people who are interested to take their time applying.

One agency that's interested is Ottawa's World Skills Employment Centre, which helps match immigrants with employers who need workers.

"The services are needed. This is a great opportunity," said Mengistab Tsegaye, the centre's executive director.

"Because we want to do this as a community… [to] collaborate or partner with other organizations. We are kind of having that initial discussion. But we will definitely apply."

Tsegaye said they'd already been looking for money to run a job fair for Syrian refugees and the employers who have reached out to World Skills looking to hire some of them.

"The job fair, for a lot of newcomers in general but for the refugees as well, it's a new concept. It's really exposing them to the way of how people look for jobs, how people build their networking opportunities," he said.

Allen said United for Refugees has a committee to look at the applications and decide how the money should be given out, based on such categories as transparency, capacity and their ability to meet the system's needs.

The money should be awarded by May, he said.