A 19-year-old Syrian refugee who has been separated from his family for eight years and only recently discovered they are still alive is planning to sponsor them to come to Canada, with the help of a group of Peterborough residents calling themselves Azadi Peterborough.
The group includes David McNab and Scarborough resident Matt Park, the two men who accidentally discovered the plight of Rashid Sheikh Hassan back in May 2021 when the young man, a Syrian Kurd living in Turkey under fear of deportation, posted on a Canadian Facebook group dedicated to birds that he wanted to come to Canada.
Rashid’s post was immediately met with racist, hateful, and anti-immigrant comments. Park defended Rashid, condemned the online attackers, and brought the post to the attention of McNab, a retired OPP officer and instructor at Trent University. McNab began corresponding with Rashid and teaching him English and, with the help of Park, McNab’s veterinarian wife Kristy Hiltz, nurse practitioner and veteran U.N. peacekeeper Lee-Anne Quinn, and social advocate Michael VanDerHerberg, raised funds to sponsor Rashid to come to Canada.
Just over a year later, his sponsors greeted Rashid as he arrived in Canada at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Rashid immediately embraced his new Canadian life — including trying poutine for the first time on the way to Peterborough. Since then, Rashid has attended high school, become fluent in English, and worked at The Whistle Stop Café in downtown Peterborough (which serves poutine of course).
After the devastating earthquakes this past February in Turkey and northern Syria, Rashid launched a campaign to raise funds for the Canadian International Medical Relief Organization (CIMRO). Hastings resident and former longtime Peterborough paramedic Mark Cameron, who is the president of CIMRO, was able to connect with two people working in the village where Rashid’s grandparents live.
During a brief call with his grandmother, Rashid was told his parents and his two sisters and brother were still alive. Shortly after that call, he saw and spoke to his family for the first time in eight years during a video call on WhatsApp.
VIDEO: Meeting Rashid at the Airport
Knowing of Rashid’s desire to be reunited with his family, his original sponsors have formed a new group called Azadi Peterborough (azadi is the Kurdish word for “freedom”). Other members of the group include Clayton Ibey and Brenda Wierdsma-Ibey (owner of The Avant-Garden Shop), retired paramedic Jim Vinn, Lainey Bates (one of Rashid’s high school teachers), pottery instructor Karina Bates, grocer Paul Halasz, and Trent University graduate student Simal Iftikhar. The group is being supported by the Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough.
To apply to the Immigration Canada to sponsor Rashid’s family to come to Canada, Azadi Peterborough needs to raise $45,000 to cover the travel costs and the costs of family support for one year.
Rashid has himself already contributed $10,000 — all the money he has earned and all of his savings — and Azadi Peterborough members have contributed another $10,000, so the group is nearly halfway to its goal.
“He is a hard-working, unselfish, and determined young man who has been contributing to his new community since he arrived,” McNab says in a media release. “It is now hoped that this community will help reunite this deserving young man with the family that he grew up believing were lost forever.”
If you would like to help Azadi Peterborough bring Rashid’s family to Canada, you can donate online via GoFundMe at gofund.me/92820f32 or by etransfer to rashidfamilysponsorship@gmail.com.
Donations can also be dropped off at or mailed to The Avant-Garden Shop (165 Sherbrooke St, Peterborough, ON K9J 2N2) or dropped off at Sherbrooke Heights Animal Hospital at 1625 Sherbrooke Street in Peterborough.
Rashid’s story
In March 2014, when he was 11 years old, Rashid Sheikh Hassan’s family home in Aleppo, Syria was bombed. Along with his parents and his younger siblings (two sisters and a brother), Rashid made it out of the house safely but subsequently became separated from his family in the chaos that followed. He travelled 100 kilometres across a war zone to find his grandparents in a village north of Aleppo, hoping the rest of his family would follow. They never did.
It was two years before Rashid could return to Aleppo. He and his grandfather made the journey to seek any news of their family but found none, and were ordered out of the area at gunpoint by the military in control of the neighbourhood.
Rashid worked and helped his grandparents until after he turned 16 in 2019, when he feared he would be conscripted into the Syrian military — a dangerous possibility, especially for a young Kurdish man. He fled Syria for Turkey in early 2020 and, after eight attempts, managed to get across the border. He made his way to Istanbul but, since refugees were no longer given protection or official refugee status, he was considered an illegal resident.
Rashid lived in Turkey for almost two years, supporting himself with meagre wages in a country where he was not entitled to education or health care. As a Kurd with no legal status in Turkey, he was at constant threat of being captured and deported back to Syria.
Hoping to come to Canada, Rashid went on Facebook and searched for a Canadian Facebook group. He found one and posted a desperate plea for guidance on how he could come to Canada to start a new and safer life. However, with little knowledge of English, he had inadvertently posted his request in a group intended for people posting photos of birds, where his post was met with hostile, anti-immigrant, and racist comments.
Matt Park, one of the group’s members, defended Rashid and brought his post to the attention of retired Peterborough County OPP officer Dave McNab, who began communicating directly with Rashid online. Over several months, McNab helped Rashid improve his English. McNab, along with his wife Kristy Hiltz, Matt Park, Lee-Anne Quinn, and Michael VanDenHerberg, raised funds to sponsor Rashid to come to Canada.
On June 23, 2022, Rashid arrived at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport where he was welcomed to his new home by his sponsors. He now works and attends school in Peterborough and speaks fluent English, his third language.
On February 22, 2023, Rashid had a video call with his grandparents, his parents and siblings, and other family. Until an hour before the call, they feared he was dead and he feared they were dead.
