Taking Refuge in Warm Home

While the bitter wind bites your skin outside, the office of Francisco Rico-Martinez is warm.

Maybe it's the dark wood on the staircase. Or, the Latin American art on the walls. Maybe it's the tropical bird squawking from the corner.

More likely, it's the man himself.

Rico-Martinez has experience welcoming- about 1,000 people walk through his door every year. Each has their own story. Rico-Martinez knows this - it's a piece of wisdom he's gained after almost twenty years of work.

But while the hospitable man in the warm home listens, outside in the bitter Canadian winter, those thousand stories get packed into a single word.

Refugee.

Rico-Martinez is co-director of Toronto's FCJ Refugee Centre - a place where newly-arrived women and children refugees can seek shelter, education and support services. All things that will help their integration.

So why does Rico-Martinez do it?

"A human being is a human being," he says. "Someone trying to survive here in Canada is not a second-class citizen."

Refugee is a big word, to say the least. And, Rico-Martinez will be the first to say it could never fully convey the histories, journeys and futures of person wearing the label.

Understanding requires listening. That's how he got started.

An El Salvadorian refugee himself, Rico-Martinez and his family fled to Canada in 1990. The family was sponsored meaning their permanent residency was arranged prior to departure. It's a label the trained lawyer and economist coins "golden refugees."

Once here, they took temporary shelter with at a home provided by the group that sponsored them - the Sisters, Faithful Companions of Jesus. Almost immediately, they began delving into the issues facing refugee community.

The Rico-Martinez family saw the need for a new shelter - one for refugees unlike themselves, specifically woman and children fleeing abuse. They approached the Sisters. In 1991, the FCJ Refugee Centre was born.

Despite trying to address the needs of a specific group, the stories and circumstances still aren't predictable. Almost 20 years later, Rico-Martinez has never heard two stories the same.

"You really receive a Pandora's Box," he says.

Take a recent Haitian refugee who spoke only Creole and had no formal education. She came hoping to give her children a better life. But adjusting proved difficult - after all, she could not communicate to her landlord that the heat was broken in her apartment.

She took English but had trouble in the classroom setting. The power-dynamic changed as her kids more easily integrated. Soon, they began asking the questions about social services and schooling.

"She fell into total isolation because she only related to members of her own community," says Rico-Martinez. "The dependency is uncontrollable."

Then, there's the elderly Eritrean woman who excelled in her English. Excited to practice, she said "Hello" to a passerby. The passerby just gave an annoyed reply, "What do you want?" Astonished, the Eritrean woman returned to the Centre and accused her them of teaching the wrong phrasing.

"This lady just had very bad luck," says Francisco Rico-Martinez.

Equally frustrated are the young and educated. Take the Zimbabwean woman, who spent years studying in America before fleeing to Canada. Her degree is not recognized while she awaits her permanent residency. Rico-Martinez sees her frustration with the months-long process and depression setting in with winter.

Still, Rico-Martinez offers her a welcoming ear.

Like he says, a human being is a human being and every human being deserves a little help - even if that is opening a door and making a welcome a little warmer.

"You can try to categorize but integration is totally different for everyone," he says. "But whatever happens in the first days will have a profound impact on a future in Canada."