I don't want to get the two confused.
Syria-Antigonish Families Embrace was formed in 2015 in response to the refugee crisis caused by the Syrian civil war. The news was inundated with stories of refugees fleeing the destruction of their homes and their country. Canadians responded by forming community groups, raising money and sponsoring families.
A small group of people from Antigonish got together and committed to raising enough money, finding a house, finding furniture and providing transportation so that a refugee family could get a start in Canada. The appeal went out to the Antigonish community and money was raised. In fact, enough money was raised to sponsor two families. This led to additional sponsorships. As of 2023 SAFE has sponsored and settled more than 20 Syrian families—over 100 people in a community of 5,000—totally by volunteer efforts.
I want to point out that we are a registered society, totally run by volunteers. We don't own anything. We even borrow paperclips. Everything that happens, happens through volunteers.
SAFE became a sponsorship agreement holder with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in 2018. This allowed SAFE to identify which refugees it would sponsor, an essential part of family reunification. When our first wave of families came in, of course, they all left people behind and had a strong interest in bringing those people along. You need to have the ability to identify those folks in order to bring them in.
It also allowed SAFE to work as a liaison between IRCC and other community groups. There are three or four other community groups in the Antigonish area that are involved with bringing in refugees. We've had people coming in from Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo and some other places that I'm missing. There is a wide variety of people coming in.
Almost eight years after the start of SAFE, more than 30 refugee families from various parts of the world have arrived in Antigonish—sponsored, helped, mentored and counselled by the good people of the community. On arrival, each became a permanent resident of the country. Many of them have now moved on to gain citizenship.
I should also mention that about 12 babies—I've lost count—have been born in those families since the families arrived. One of the characteristics of rural Nova Scotia, particularly in the part of the world where I live, is that the demographics have shown us that we are getting older and that we need people in the workforce. As a former school superintendent, I'm very, very conscious of the declining enrolment in our schools and the effect of that. Just from the Syrian families alone, there are about 20 additional kids in the school system. That has obviously made a big difference.
It's not in my notes, but I also want to mention Ukrainian settlement. Because of the expertise built in the community, another probably 15 to 20 Ukrainian families have arrived in the community and have accessed volunteer help. That's a story for another day. I don't want to get into the details of that, because there are some particular challenges for that group. Antigonish has become a bit of a target community for them.
There are some major challenges to what we're trying to do here. I'm sure it's common in other parts of the country, particularly in rural parts of the country. Of course, you need to have the money in the bank to provide support for the family for a year. That money should cover start-up costs and a monthly allocation that lasts for the first 12 months. However, this amount of money is tied to whatever the income assistance rates are for the province.
In Nova Scotia, income assistance rates are dismal. Families are still eligible for the Canada child benefit, which has been a saviour. Still, a family of two adults and two children is living on about $33,000 a year, which is well below the poverty level.
According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 33.1% of children in immigrant families that arrived in Nova Scotia between 2016 and 2020 are living in poverty. The national rate for this group is 21%. Also, 15.9% of children in non-immigrant families in Nova Scotia lived in poverty during this period, with the national rate being 10.7%. When we look specifically at various racialized groups in Nova Scotia, we find that 55% of Arab children in Nova Scotia, compared to 26.3% of Arab children in all of Canada, are from low-income families. I think the reason for that is that a lot of those children came in since 2016 and are in refugee families that are being settled, going back to the rates we just talked about.