ORAT
1220 Yonge Street, Suite 203 M4T 1W1 Toronto, ON, Canada

: 08, 2020 Wishing you and your family a Blessed Advent.

2, 2020 Each year, Aid to the Church in Need organizes an event, known as Red Wednesday in many dioceses across Canada. This year’s event took place on November 18, 2020. The event is intended to provide an occasion to join together to pray for and make known the tremendous persecution faced by hundreds of millions of Christians in many parts of the world. Sadly western media outlets have little to say about the suffering faced by so ma...ny. Please click on the attached link to read a recent article by Susan Korah that was published in Convivium: https://www.convivium.ca//religious-persecutions-red-lett/

27, 2020 Click on the video below:... https://youtu.be/ksHKrIaO1pI

! 29, 2020 Please click on the following link to learn more about how endowments can assist the church's work in assisting refugees.... https://www.catholicregister.org//32290-refugee-endowment-

28, 2020 The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) and the University of Notre Dame will hold the 2020 Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative Conference on Thursday, October 1 and Friday, October 2, 2020. Out of an abundance of caution for all who would like to participate, this year’s conference will take place virtually. This annual event is part of CMS’s Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative (CII...I) which seeks to understand, expand and strengthen the work of Catholic institutions with immigrant communities. The conference will: Present perspectives on the major challenges facing immigrants, refugees, their families and faith communities, at a time of multiple crises; Explore promising and successful programs and ministries with immigrants in parishes, legal services programs, elementary schools, universities, the workplace, charities, community organizing entities, hospitals, and other institutions; Examine how changing national and international immigration and refugee policies are affecting Catholic institutions, their members and those they serve; Explore how Catholic institutions can strengthen their work in promoting the integration, protection, and empowerment of persons with strong roots in sending and receiving communities; Feature an annual address named after CMS’s co-founder, Fr. Lydio Tomasi, c.s. on the theological vision underlying the work of Catholic institutions with immigrants and refugees; and, Feature local migrant programs and ministries in the University of Notre Dame regional area. Please consider registering for this event at https://docs.google.com//1FAIpQLScOmw14f8-ZtpSErF/viewform

’ : 2, 2020 Please note that registration for members of the general public that took place from September 28-30, 2020, is now closed. We received an overwhelming response to the registration, the intent of which was to assist members of the general public who desired to sponsor family members who are in need of refugee resettlement. In total, we received 12,226 registrations. Of these, only 2,798 were valid... registrations. Many of the invalid registrations were completed by the refugees themselves, or by cosponsors who did not reside within the Greater Toronto Area. Of the 2,798 registration, the majority of these were to sponsor Syrians (52.5%) or Eritreans (38.1%). The following table reports by Country of Origin/Citizenship, the number of cases that were registered, and the number of refugees that the registered cases represented Given the limited number of refugees that sponsoring organizations like ORAT are able to sponsor, we are unable to assist many of those who registered. To manage this and to be as fair as possible, a random draw will be held in mid October. All registrants will have an equal chance of being selected. In the subsequent weeks following the draw, selected registrants will be invited by email to attend an on-line Introduction to Resettlement information session. If we find out in 2021 that we are able to submit additional refugee sponsorship cases to Immigration Canada, then we will go down the draw order and select the next batch of registrants to begin work on their cases. Please do NOT email application paperwork to the office, unless invited to do so by ORAT staff. If you were not contacted by our office, we encourage you to explore other immigration options that may be available, and/or reach out to other Sponsorship Agreement Holders in your community to see if they are able to assist you.

28, 2020 In preparation for this year's World Day of Migrants and Refugees, and as part of the "Faith in the Public Square" series, the Archdiocese of Toronto hosted a webinar on Christian Persecution. The webinar took take place on Thursday, September 24 at 7:00 PM, and was moderated by Neil McCarthy, Director of Communication for the Archdiocese of Toronto, and included Carl Hetu (Catholic Near East Welfare Association),... Marie-Claude Lalonde (Aid to the Church in Need), and Deacon Rudy Ovcjak (Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto) as panelists. To view the webinar, simply click on the following link https://youtu.be/_vtFXh49Y_s. Please share this link with your friends and family.

: 27, 2020 The Office of Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto is pleased to share with you the following video message, from Raquel Dancho, M.P., Conservative Shadow Minister of Immigration, to mark the 106th annual World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Please click on the link bellow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_T94JIgwCY

: 27, 2020 As we celebrate World day of Migrants and Refugees please click on the link below to listen to the Homily of His Eminence, Thomas Cardinal Collins Archbishop of Toronto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXzYTIDWnL0&feature=youtu.be