Nataly Shouhmelian and Wood Green Community Services Centre

Syrian refugees: It is very hard to start from zero, Nataly Shouhmelian told Mayor John Tory as he visited the Wood Green Community Services centre on Danforth Ave. yesterday to help launch HOME, an internet portal designed to connect newly arrived Syrian refugees with donors of housing, furniture, clothing or personal services, according to Toronto Star. This will help tremendously. Now Syrian refugees, most of who arrived in Canada with little more then clothes on their backs, can turn to the Internet for help in getting settled in their adopted country. We are settled, but need furniture. The family, including her husband, who was out getting a job, arrived in Toronto a month ago from Lebanon, where they spent the past year waiting for approval of their application to immigrate to Canada through the private sponsorship program of the Armenian community.A computer teacher back in Aleppo, Shouhmelian says she hopes to enroll in courses eventually to further her education, but right now is focused on settling her family. We don’t have everything because we are starting from zero, Shouhmelian said as her son, Kevork, 3, exchanged high-fives with the mayor. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.