Featured Organization: FCJ Refugee Centre

FCJ Refugee Centre is a registered charity located in Toronto, ON. The organization serves refugees and others at risk due to their immigration status, and welcomes anyone asking for advice, counsel and support regarding their refugee or immigration claim. FCJ Refugee Centre addresses systemic issues that newly arrived refugee claimants and precarious status migrants face in Canada, including lack of essential resources, marginalization, and discrimination. They work through an intersectional anti-oppressive lens, with an approach centered on increasing access to justice for marginalized newcomers to Canada. They work primarily with refugee claimants, rejected refugee claimants and individuals with precarious immigration status who have few resources.

FCJ Refugee Centre’s Settlement and Integration services provide transitional housing for women and children, with the capacity to house more than 30 residents in temporary housing. Through their Women’s Programs, they support skill development to integrate into and navigate life in Toronto in a holistic way. Services provided include English classes, OW applications, housing, and more. FCJ Refugee Centre also runs a Primary Care Clinic that offers free healthcare services for uninsured clients, with programming designed to meet the unique health needs of disenfranchised populations from diverse cultural backgrounds.

FCJ Refugee Centre’s Youth Network welcomes youth from all over the world, many of whom  live in Toronto with very limited family or financial support, and are navigating immigration processes while dealing with numerous systemic barriers due to race, age, socioeconomic status, and immigration status (or lack thereof). In addition, FCJ Refugee Centre seeks to address the barrier of education access by creating pathways for admission for students who had previously been prevented from studying due to their immigration status.

The Anti-Human Trafficking Program is one of FCJ Refugee Centre’s core programs, serving victims/survivors of human trafficking by providing holistic support and a full range of services including orientation, legal information, immigration options, housing, employment support, and counselling.

FCJ Refugee Centre shares their expertise of 30 years of walking with uprooted people through their Public Education Program, which offers workshops/webinars for service providers and communities that serve vulnerable newcomer sectors, non-status and precarious migrant populations. The Public Education Program’s goal is to address the multiple settlement needs of vulnerable newcomer populations experiencing multiple barriers, equip front line workers with the information and tools necessary to provide support services to precarious migrants, and connect newcomer populations with up-to-date resources and information to successfully navigate legal and immigration processes.