Meet the Syrian Refugee Crisis Hero
Alexandra Kotyk is the project manager for Lifeline Syria, a non-profit organization that campaigns to resettle a thousand Syrian refugees in the Greater Toronto Area by the end of 2016.
Alexandra is also the granddaughter of well-known American child psychologist, Manford Sonstegard. Sonstegard moved his family to Ethiopia to work for the United States Agency for International Aid during the civil rights movement. He was infamously known for the condemnation of capital punishment on radio. A move that got his daughter — Alexandra’s mother — kicked out of middle school.
Social justice runs in the family.
However, it wasn’t until Alexandra experimented with different career options that she stumbled into a career in philanthropy.
In 2004, she was enrolled in a contemporary arts program at Ryerson University, but an “I didn’t know where it was going” moment encouraged her to drop out during her first year. Alexandra then pursued an electrician apprenticeship. A few months in, she decided it wasn’t for her either.
And then, in October 2007, Ian Mcbride, executive director of AURA and a family friend of the Kotyks, needed a replacement for a staff person who had moved away. Alexandra offered to step in. AURA, formerly Anglican United Refugee Alliance, is a Canadian charitable organization that assists in the sponsorship and resettlement of refugees. Alexandra worked as an executive and sponsorship assistant. She was responsible for refugee status determination, refugee resettlement within Canada, provided sponsorship and refugee training sessions and overall support to McBride. Alexandra worked in this position for five years, until she was eventually promoted to acting executive officer in September 2012, after McBride suffered a heart attack. With this leadership role, she provided programming and direction for agency, made sure agency policies were compatible with government policies and implemented novel sponsorship outreach programs.
During her time at AURA, Alexandra was also a part-time student at Ryerson University where she completed a bachelor of arts in global studies in 2012. She also obtained a certificate from York University’s Center for Refugee studies in 2008.
Alongside AURA, Alexandra also began working for the Sponsorship Agreement Holder Association (SAH) as a treasurer. She acted as a media contact to Canada’s response to Syrian refugees and represented SAH at Canadian Council for Refugees Fall Consultation workshops.
Ultimately, in May 2015, Alexandra’s immense experience with refugee work allowed her to be hired as the only paid staff member at Lifeline Syria, where she worked alongside eight volunteers. She had 31 sponsorship groups signed up with Lifeline Syria and intended to submit only ten refugee cases to Citizenship and Immigration Canada in October 2015.
On September 2nd 2015 her life changed. An image of a dead three-year-old boy, Alan Kurdi, washed up on Turkey’s shores enticed media outrage. The
tiny, windowless Lifeline Syria office came alive. Within two days, Lifeline Syria received over 1500 emails which caused a server crash. The phones began to ring nonstop, with inquiries from Canadians about how to contribute, sponsors willing to sign up and pleading families that wanted her to help their refugee family members. She also received heartbreaking calls from refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. The number of sponsorship groups signed up with Lifeline Syria accumulated to 224.
Alexandra now trains sponsorship groups, meets with donors, gives public presentations and oversees volunteers on top answering media inquiries — her hectic life allows her to eat only when her mother places food in front of her.
Canada is the only country in the world where private sponsorship is present. Private sponsors account for sixty-percent of refugee resettlement, while the Canadian government accounts for forty-percent. While the government has more financial resources, aid for the refugee crisis is mostly funded by private citizens.
So what is Alexandra’s next endeavour? She puts a focus on newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pledge to bring in more Syrian refugees. On a recent episode of CBC’s The Current, she presents an oral letter in which she states:
“Dear Prime Minister. My name is Alexandra Kotyk and I am the Project Manager of Lifeline Syria. We’re a grassroots based organization that is hoping to bring over a thousand Syrian refugees to the greater Toronto area in the next 2 years. There are a few things that we hope that you will be able to do in order to allow more Syrians to arrive in Canada. The first is to increase our commitment to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees to ask for more refugees to be referred to Canadians here, so that they can sponsor them. The next is to allow an easier family reunification. There are lots of Syrian Canadians here who have lots of family and friends overseas that they’d love to see and want them to allow to start a new life here in Canada. If you could find a way to speed up that process through continuing to increase visa officers on the ground, making paper work easier, that would go a long way. The last thing that would make a huge difference is not to set caps for the private sponsored cases. Citizens are stepping forward to help support these people. Private sponsored refugees are being supported by Canadian citizens and that means that they are taking the full responsibility for supporting them for that year and therefore there should be no cap on how many can come to Canada. Refugee resettlement — it’s not part of politics. It shouldn’t even be political. Best wishes in the new job, Alexandra Kotyk.”
It is worrisome when the government vows to bring in large numbers of refugees to Canada, such as Trudeau’s pledge to resettle 25000 refugees by the end of 2015, but depends on private sponsors to contribute to that sum. Initially, it was the government who brought in refugees. Private citizens were then given the option to help additional refugees. Now private sponsors do almost the same work as the government, including making sure that the arriving refugees are designated under international and Canadian law.
Alexandra’s hard work has dubbed her to be extremely compassionate and capable amongst her colleagues. After attending her second Lifeline Syria meeting on September 16th 2015, Debbie Rix, a founder of a private Syrian-refugee sponsorship group called Project Toronto Welcomes had this to say:
“Just attended my second Lifeline Syria meeting. I have to say, Alexandra Kotyk kicks some serious ass, and my ass is seriously impressed. Every roadblock, every unexpected question, every request was met with ‘I’ll make that happen,’ and somehow I believe she’ll do just that. And the good news is that it sounds like refugee families will be arriving in 4–8 months, not 18–24 as was first thought.”
With Alexandra’s dedication to the Syrian refugee crisis, it is likely see many of the thousand refugees resettle in the GTA by the end of next year.
