The Syrian Canadian Foundation wants to make Dema's dream to participate in the Paralympics come true.

The University of Ottawa’s Social Wellness Club has joined a Group of Five to privately sponsor a Syrian family. They are crowdfunding $5,000 over Ramadan as their contribution to this joint effort. Financial contributions can be made online here.

Muslim Link interviewed the club members about their initiative.

Syrian Hadi Wess currently studies psychology at the University of Ottawa, where he is also the Vice-President-Social for the university’s Student Federation (SFUO).

He helped to organize a vigil on June 13th honouring the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. SFUO condemned homophobia, transphobia but also Islamophobia at the vigil, where the tragedy was framed as a hate crime against the LGBTQ community as opposed to a terrorist attack.

Montreal-based Syrian Canadian journalist Oussayma Canbarieh has made multiple documentaries exploring the challenges faced by Muslims navigating their identity within North American societies. In particular, her ground-breaking web series for Radio Canada International, “Me, The Muslim Next Door”, follows the lives of seven young Muslim Canadians in Montreal and Toronto. Oussayma was awarded the Lys de la Diversité Prize for web-journalism in 2013.

The sponsorship group Refugee SOS were once strangers but they came together with one goal, reuniting a family torn apart by war. They are fundraising to reunite Zarah, a Syrian refugee to Canada, with her sister, who is still a refugee in the Middle East. Both sisters are single mothers. Muslim Link interviewed the group about why they chose to sponsor Zarah’s sister.

Syrian Canadian Sara Imadi studies Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa and currently works at a Community Health Centre in Ottawa South. She lives with Type 1 Diabetes.

Hundreds of Ottawa residents gathered on September 5th to raise awareness about the global refugee crisis and what is seen as the current Canadian government’s ongoing lack of support for refugees.

As it snowed on the evening of February 11th, students gathered in front of the Human Rights Monument in downtown Ottawa to recognize the victims of the Chapel Hill Shooting in the US. Syrian American Deah Barakat, 23, his Palestinian American wife Yusor Abu Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Abu Salha, 19, were shot at gunpoint by Craig Stephen Hicks reportedly over a parking dispute, but many allege that the motives run far deeper and that this is a hate crime against Muslims.

Bachar Awneh, 26, recently returned from Vancouver where he won Bronze for Swimming in the Special Olympics Canada Summer Games. Over 2000 athletes, coaches and officials participated in the Games which took place at the University of British Columbia. The Special Olympics Summer Games brings together accomplished athletes from across Canada who are living with intellectual disabilities.

Ottawa’s Muslim community is full of uncommon mixed race identities, but Shady Hafez, 25, might be an original. Born in Ottawa, the son of an Algonquin mother from the Kitigan Zibi reservation and a Muslim father from Syria, Shady was raised in two worlds, each misunderstanding of the other, and both misunderstood by mainstream Western culture.

As the author of the recent BuzzFeed article 12 Easy Steps For Canadians To Follow If They’re Serious About Reconciliation, Shady's writing aims to help bridge the gaps between his communities.

Muslim Link interviewed Shady Hafez back in 2014, about how he navigates his identities.