Sumas Prairie Migrant Workers in B.C. Canada

This is a community-based effort run by Muller Ojeda (migrant worker and volunteer) and Lise Tetreault, located in Chilliwack, BC.

 

We have been providing assistance to about 150 temporary foreign workers who have been stranded due to the flooding in Sumas Prairie. Our main efforts have gone to ensuring that the workers basic needs are being met. We have also helped in relocating them out of the mass shelter situation they were in. The financial help we are asking for is to aid them in replacing what was lost in the flood and any other needs they may have.

 

With the money we collect we are hoping to buy gift cards so the workers can get what they actually need. It could be food, clothing or personal care products.

 

We started by assisting those who were evacuated here to Chilliwack but now some of those workers have been dispersed to other areas. We are currently working on compiling a list of the workers and where they are located. Once that is established, we can then contact the other groups in those areas to co-ordinate the relief efforts. As this has happened so quickly we are trying to organize as fast yet efficiently as possible. Our first priority was to ensure their safety, now we will work on being of assistance in any way we can.

 

We have been in contact with both the Mexican and Guatemalan consulates who are aware of what we are trying to accomplish. We are grateful for the support of farms who we reached through the Migrant Ministry network, who were unaffected by the flooding and have offered up their housing to provide better shelter for the workers displaced by this catastrophe.

 

Any support you can provide will go a long way to helping these workers!!

I would also like to let you know that I have been working side by side with the workers for the last 5 years. That is how I'm related to them.

I will be withdrawing the funds in my name to my own personal bank account 

I will also personally be delivering the funds to the workers by gift cards and buying the needs they might require as well as monetary assistance.