Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The difficult plight of the Karens by By Kate Heartfield

Below is a story of Paw Pway and her Travel Loan. Kate Heartfield, a member of the Citizen's editorial board, wrote a wonderful story about the issue.

The difficult plight of the Karens
By Kate Heartfield

The best way to honour the memory of Marion Dewar, the former mayor who died this year, is to revitalize the Ottawa tradition of hospitality that she began.
Ms. Dewar is best remembered for starting Project 4,000, which found homes for Southeast Asian refugees in Ottawa in 1979. There was a huge rally in Lansdowne Park. Churches and community groups, families and co-workers scraped together what money they could to help the families make new homes here.
Ms. Dewar would be sick at heart to spend an hour in the home of Paw Puay, a 52-year-old woman who came here just more than a year ago. She is one of nearly 4,000 Karen refugees the Canadian government invited to Canada over the last few years. And she's struggling to pay the federal government back for the cost of her plane ticket. To read full story