The Centre Lavallois pour l’Intégration et la Cohésion Sociale (CLICS) in Laval held an information session for residents as they expect asylum seekers to be settling in the city.
The session was held Thursday evening for residents who want to help.
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CLICS knows settling into a new community can be difficult.
“It’s not easy, but we try to make it easy,” Lilia Derbal, CLICS Laval, said.
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The community group says residents can get involved by donating or helping as interpreters.
“The fact that the refugees, they have no choice and for them, it’s a new life,” Derbal said. “So we want to help both of them. We want to help citizens to understand and we want to help refugees to establish here.”
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With many asylum seekers originally from Haiti, Montreal’s Haitian community wants to do its part.
Radio host Vladimir Gelin says many are trying to chip in wherever they can.
“The Haitian community is trying to help the people that they can help,” Gelin said. “We try to help the kids, to help the families find an apartment, to find food.”
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