How a Canadian boss rescued 300 Syrian refugees
How a Canadian boss rescued 300 Syrian refugees
It’s a good news day here at “BargainBrute.Com,” where we search the world for a piece of good news unfolding before our eyes. Today we find out how a Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist managed to snap 300 Syrian refugees from the jaws of death.
In 2015, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist “Jim Estill” was sitting at home watching the tragic events of Syrian men, women, and children attempting to escape the horrors of war-torn Syria. Not since the horrors of the 2nd World War had civilians been placed between different warring factions essentially becoming a human barricade.
It was a time, and still is a period, when children huddled together to avoid the bullets from a well-placed sniper to get to school. IWhengrown men in tears, sit was a time searched the rubble of what once was their homes for their children, most times found with horrific wounds, and most times with the same look of horror etched into the haggard lines of their visage. Their crime? They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, the sniper-infested streets of Allepo, or for that matter, any major city within a country which had reached the abyss of man’s inhumanity to his fellow kind.
Simply as he would later say, he decided right then and there to do all he could to help the impoverished children of Syria come to Canada and live a life that we regularly take for granted. Why? As the humble 62-year old said, “it was the right thing to do.”
At first, when he looked at possible ways he could carry out his rescue plan the odds of success seemed unmountable, but after finding out that Canada did have a program for bringing refugees into Canada called the “Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program” initially set up to help to flee refugees from Vietnam some 41 years ago, he saw that he had a possible way to enact his plan.
Unfortunately, and almost immediately, our Canadian philanthropist became aware that the Canadian “Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program” had caveats attached to it. Caveats that seemed would scrap his well-thought-out rescue plan before it had even got off the ground.
The Canadian government had, for their reasons, stipulated that any person or entity had to cover all expenses for the first year to enable a refugee to become eligible for the program. Most people would have just aborted their efforts then and there, but not “Mr. Estill”. Without any hesitation at all, he decided to use his own money to the tune of $1.5 million Canadian, which would enable him to bring Syrian refugees to his neighborhood, the city of Guelph, Ontario, approximately 60 miles from Toronto.
Jim initially paid for 50 Syrian families to make the trip from war-ravaged Syria, even putting some of them up in his own house once they arrived. However, what was to follow can only be called a genuinely extraordinary outpouring of public support for his rescue plan. Mainly because of Jim’s leadership church groups and hundreds of volunteers from across the small Guelph township, which only has a population of 135,00, came together with the local Islamic society providing support and financial help whenever they could.
People of the small township even offered spare rooms, landlords offered empty apartments, and the Salvation Army collected clothing, all of which was desperately required to clothe the refugees in the upcoming harsh Canadian winter. Refugees were even offered both English and Arabic mentors who would a bit further down the line help with their children’s enrollment in schools, get bank accounts and start the mammoth job of finding work.
Jim himself also managed to employ 28 refugees in the Guelph Canadian home appliances firm, Danby he owns and operates. Furthermore, and going one step further, he also offered financial guarantees to allow some of the Syrian escapees to set up their own business within the Guelph neighborhood.
Jim has thus far managed to help 89 Syrian families, that’s a total of over 300 people all of who would have faced certain possible death while going about their everyday business in Allepo, Syria.
Jim’s rescue plan gladly did not go unnoticed, just this year in March. The Canadian Governor-General awarded him, Julie Payette, who represents Queen Elizabeth II in Canada, the “Order of Canada,” the country’s second-highest honor (it should have been the first), and when the Mayor of Guelph was asked to comment about“Jim Estill” he said,
Jim is “a down-to-earth, quiet, humble leader.” He adds: “I can tell he cares about the people he employs, and the community he’s in.
Well, folks, what a tremendous change to be able to speak about the goodness which is happening all around us and not just the wrong things, so with this in mind, I would like to thank BargainBrute.Com Voted America’s favorite place to shop online in 2019 for giving me the platform to be able to write about this incredible story of human kindness. It definitely lifts the spirits and nullifies some of the horrendous things which are going on all around us as we sit within the comfort of our own homes.
Food for thought: It is estimated that more than 570,000 people have perished in the Syrian Civil War, which is 2% of the war in Syria’s total population. Furthermore, UNICEF has stated that scores of children have been arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. The United Nations has said that by the end of April 2014 (the last year where casualty figures were released), 8,803 children had been killed on the streets, just attempting to go to school.
All I can say is thank God for men like “Jim Estill” and pray that somehow, more people like him will show their heads and help the victims of armed uprisings no matter where they are happening on our planet we call home, our Mother Earth.
So many thanks for reading and coming back and visiting America’s favorite place to shop online, BargainBrute.Com.
