Village of Burns Lake Councillor Charlie Rensby has been attempting to organize sponsoring a Ukrainian refugee to bring them to Burns Lake on temporary visa for the past month amidst the ongoing Russia/Ukraine conflict.
His plans have hit a bit of a snag though, as he asked his fellow councillors for some help during a meeting on April 19.
“What I’m asking of council is a promotional brochure, or something to put together that sells Burns Lake. I’m sure for a lot of Ukrainians, the idea of coming to a small community like Burns Lake is probably a terrifying concept when there are places in the province that are much more well known like Vancouver. We need to provide something that shows them what kind of lifestyle they would be living should they come here and all the things our town has to offer,” he told council.
There’s a caveat though, the information package would have to be in Ukrainian, not English.
READ MORE: Rensby moving forward with Ukrainian sponsorship
Rensby proposed an idea of taking a Village of Burns Lake tourism brochure, and translating it to Ukrainian on google translate. “I have a contact in town who speaks Ukrainian, so what we would have to do put the brochure into google translate, and then my contact would clean it up and make it fluent,” said Rensby during the meeting.
When asked if the Ukraine brochure does in fact get made, what is the next step, Rensby replied, “Next step is to get it out to potential refugees, I will be opening a donation account soon so we can start preparing for the potential arrival. I plan on sending it through government channels, focusing on refugees who have already decided to come to Canada.”
The idea was not ultimately decided on by council, as Mayor Dolores Funk indicated that more discussions would have to be had on the topic.
Even if the translated promotional brochure gets approved, there are still several obstacles in the way of successfully bringing a refugee over. In order to sponsor a refugee, you have to be able to contact them yourselves. This means that Rensby would have to make contact with a displaced person in Ukraine through a mutual contact.
In addition, the funds that would have to be raised within the community to make the move possible are around $40,000, according to Rensby.
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Eddie Huband
Multimedia Reporter
eddie.huband@ldnews.net
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