What Canada can learn from Germany s mass, unplanned migration
Five years ago, more than a million refugees arrived in Germany. Today, many are working full-time. Here are the lessons Canada can learn from what went right and wrong in Germany.
February 2, 2021 Shmayess (right) left Syria for Görlitz, Germany, in 2015; his wife, Ammar, joined him a year later and the couple recently opened a restaurant (Photograph by Sadiya Ansari)
When Sami Shmayess was visiting his parents in his hometown of Latakia, Syria, in 2008, he met a German family who were on a year-long trip in their van. Long stretches of beach on the Mediterranean coast made the port city a popular holiday destination, and it was on a walk by the water where Shmayess’s parents spotted the Germans and invited them over for dinner and a hot shower. Shmayess quickly became friends with them. Eight years later, it was their turn to invite Shmayess to stay with them in Görlitz, a small city in the eastern part of Ger
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Culture shock, social isolation and other hurdles have always taken a heavy toll on the mental health of refugees and the pandemic could drive many to the breaking point, experts warn
When Mehmet Tohti was 14, his father died, just days after being released from the Chinese labour camp where he had been held for 13 years. The detention centre was one of many such camps in Xinjiang province, where China has been waging what critics call a genocidal campaign against its Uyghur minority. Tohti’s grandfather too died in a camp. Community elders, imams, friends of the family – one by one, the people around Tohti were disappearing into the camps. It seemed like only a matter of time: Tohti would be next.