Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 09/99) - At a meeting held last week, 15 residents offered to help make Yellowknife a home away from home for refugees from war-torn Kosovo.

Marlo Bullock, who is spearheading the drive to offer assistance to the refugees, said the main challenge she's dealing with now is clearing up confusion.

"Even now there's an amount of misunderstanding about what sponsoring groups are responsible for," said Bullock.

"The federal government is assuming all costs relating to settling refugees into Canadian communities," Bullock said.

The federal government requires sponsor groups of five people, with at least one member affiliated with a community service organization, for each refugee family.

Each sponsor group takes responsibility for helping a family adjust to life in their new community. That includes helping them find suitable accommodation, familiarizing them with the community and what it has to offer and assisting them with tasks such as shopping.

The sponsorship commitment is for two years.

With sponsor groups already assembled for three families, the question remaining is, will there be any refugees coming to Yellowknife?

Approximately 5,500 Kosovar refugees are in Canada. Most of them are being housed at Department of National Defence bases.

No city North of 60 is on the list of communities designated by the federal government to receive refugees. The Department of Foreign Affairs said the selected have existing Albanian communities within them and because of the support services they have to offer.

"I'm going to ask Ethel (Blondin-Andrew, Western Arctic MP) if she can put some pressure on to bring some of them up here," said Dave Ramsay, who has been championing the refugee cause on council.

At the urging of Ramsay, Mayor Dave Lovell recently wrote a letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy asking questions council had about the city's obligations in offering Yellowknife as a temporary home for refugees.

Bullock and Ramsay are inviting concerned citizens to a follow-up meeting at the upper boardroom at City Hall this Thursday starting at 7 p.m.