RAFIO'S STORY

RAFIO was born from the idea of a young immigrant woman, Antoinette Irarera, of Burundian origin and trained psychologist with experience in supporting people in situations of psychological suffering. When she arrived in Canada, in the city of Ottawa, she made observations on the living conditions of immigrants and refugees in reception centres and community facilities where they seek services for their integration. She found that these imdividuals, despite the various services offered, something very important seems to be ignored: the psychosocial support and mental health service adapted to their reality in a context of immigration and especially asylum applications.

 

After all these observations, in March 2020, Antoinette had the idea to create a psychosocial support organization for immigrant populations. She approaches a few friends and acquaintances to present her idea, and fortunately everyone approves of the idea because they themselves make the same observations as she does. Why is RAFIO right? On the one hand, the founding members of RAFIO realize that the psychosocial background experienced in the past by immigrants before immigrating to Canada can be nasty obstacles to integrate effectively into the Canadian community.

 

Elsewhere, these members note that arriving in Canada requires professional, cultural, and social integration, whereas many immigrants face many barriers to integration (language, culture, different social environment, climate, discrimination...) constitutes another form of integration disability, and the two aspects combined are root causes of the mental health imbalance among some immigrants and refugees. The members are convinced that the issue of mental health is everyone’s business, immigrants and Canadians alike. This is why RAFIO is made up of immigrant and refugee people, as well as native, compassionate, and caring Canadians.to be immigrants and refugees.

 

This wonderful team is made up of members who have worked with, or have worked with, immigrants in their professional lives. They conclude that the project is very relevant to see the mental health needs observed among many immigrants. This team illustrates certain problems experienced by these target groups, including the decline in the ability to manage emotions after seeing that everything must start from zero, the lack of courage to seek help or advice, the fear of verbalizing personal problems, ignorance of the existence of psychosocial and mental health services, fear of being stigmatized... It is for all these reasons that this team works tirelessly to make RAFIO a very strong and active community organization in psychosocial support for immigrants and refugees.

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The name RAFIO – Active Resilience of Immigrant Families in Ontario – is inspired by an issue experienced by many immigrants and refugees. Indeed, some of them show a certain resilience, but it is often passive due to the difficulties they faced before arriving in Canada and the associated psychological injuries. For others, their mental health may deteriorate once they arrive in Canada, due to the social, professional and psychological changes and challenges inherent in integrating into their new living environment. The founding members of RAFIO are themselves mostly from immigrant backgrounds and have overcome several integration challenges, so they are able to put their lessons learned and professional background to the benefit of immigrant communities. Non-immigrant members, on the other hand, provide invaluable support to the team through their complementary perspectives, knowledge and skills. For all these reasons, RAFIO wants to carry out interventions with refugees and immigrants in order to support them with psychosocial support that can make them actively resilient.!

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RAFIO values are

 

Caring and Empathy: RAFIO is committed to being compassionate and empathetic in all interactions with our participants and to promoting empathy within the Ontario community towards refugees and immigrants.

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Respect and professionalism: RAFIO is committed to respecting its members, partners and beneficiaries of its services. RAFIO intends to instill professionalism in all its stakeholders.​

 

Responsibility and confidentiality: RAFIO feels a moral responsibility and duty to meet the psychosocial support needs of refugees and immigrants in Ontario and to ensure that our interventions do not cause harm. Since the relationship of trust is the foundation of any assistance relationship, RAFIO undertakes to guarantee confidentiality in all its interventions.

 

Open-mindedness and valuing diversity: RAFIO is open and receptive to different ideas and opinions, to take into account the unique contributions of each person and to be in a state of constant evolution and improvement. Furthermore, RAFIO considers cultural diversity to be an invaluable resource for Canadian society. Both immigrants and Canadians have much to gain from each other, with each bringing qualities and strengths to explore and learn from.

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Congruence: Although RAFIO emphasizes community-based approaches to addressing the psychosocial needs of immigrant and refugee communities, it recognizes that every individual is unique in their gender. RAFIO then also uses the person-centered approach.