We are asking for your financial support to bring Semhar and her three children under the age of 10, to come to Canada. Semhar is an Eritrean refugee in Ethiopia. She escaped from Eritrea in 2015 with her family and they were living at a refugee camp in the Tigray region of Ethiopia until the war broke out in November 2020.

Nearly 100,000 refugees from Eritrea, bordering Ethiopia to the north, were registered in four camps in the Tigray region when fighting erupted between Ethiopian federal government and the regional forces of Tigray. Two of those camps were caught up in hostilities and remained inaccessible to the UNHCR for months. As a result, up to 20,000 Eritrean refugees disappeared from the two camps.

While Semhar survived gun battles, attempted abductions by the Eritrean government, attacks by angry militiamen in the area and days-long treks to safety with nothing to eat but moringa leaves, her Husband didn’t. He was killed by armed militias in December 2020 at the refugee camp.

Semhar is now living in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, with no adequate assistance, no basic needs for her children and with no future.

We are committed to sponsor Semhar and her three children to come to Toronto, Canada, but we need your help. To bring her through the Private Refugee Sponsorship (PSR) program, we need to mobilize at least $28,700 CAD for their living expenses for a year upon arrival. (Click here for more information on Canada's PSR program)

Please help us make this happen and pass this campaign on to your family, friends, and networks.

If you wish to get directly involved in this initiative or if you have questions, please feel free to reach out to us.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Shoshana Coodin, Shauna Calnitsky, Dawit Demoz, Jordan Foisy, Gordon Gibson, Melody Lotfi, Evan Newton, and Sarah Paul