Survivor-led Approach - Lamp Lifeboat Ladder

In June 2022, Lamp Lifeboat Ladder began a writing group for survivors in the program. The aim of the group is to provide a dedicated space for survivors to learn new, or enhance their existing, writing skills and creative talents and build a community of survivor writers. It is also meant to provide an alternative to the norm of survivors often being only seen as one dimension ...

The Lamp Lifeboat running team continues to go from strength to strength! Together, the team of 15 runners has run more than a dozen races across the world this year.  This Saturday 10 December - Human Rights Day - 10 members of the team in Canada ran a 10K race and then on Sunday they ran the Santa Shuffle race in Toronto dressed up in Santa outfits! Even though it was 14 degr ...

Many of the women and girls in our Lamp Lifeboat Ladder program have experienced violence, either in the country from which they fled, or on their migration journey. We provide them with safe shelter, health care, access to psychological and other social support and community, as well as securing for them legal pathways to protection.   We stand in solidarity with all women and ...

The amazing Abdo has been part of the Lamp Lifeboat Ladder family for more than 5 years. He resettled to Toronto in October 2021 with his parents and siblings. Since arriving he has started interviewing passersby in different parts of Toronto, asking them questions about the city and filming their responses, adding the clips to his YouTube channel 'Abdo Tube'.  He said it's a f ...

Congratulations to eight members of our Lamp Lifeboat Ladder running team who completed the Dead Sea 10K race in Jordan last week!!!  This was the first official race the team has participated in since the marathon team began and we smashed it!  My name is Saeed, I'm originally from Syria and I am the Lamp Lifeboat Ladder Athletics Director. I ran with our international directo ...

At the beginning of 2022, our director Jayne Fleming teamed up with a survivor in our project to train for a marathon together. They knew it would be tough, but it’s a great goal to focus on, and helps one get fit in the process. They picked the Istanbul Marathon in November 2022 as the race they would aim for. When Jayne shared this plan with team members and other survivors i ...

We are so happy to share with you that four survivors in our program left Greece and arrived in Canada last Thursday! The three individuals and one family were met at the airport by two survivors who have already resettled and members of their ally groups who will accompany and support them as they start to build new lives in Canada.  So far, 15 survivors and their families - a ...

In December 2021, one of our most committed supporters and donors, Dean Dakolias, kindly offered to match up to $100,000 in donations to Lamp Lifeboat Ladder from Reed Smith lawyers by the end of the year.  We’re thrilled to announce that in just 16 days a group of incredibly generous lawyers at Reed Smith donated over $150,000, taking our total raised to $250,000 including Dea ...

Our unique survivor-led refugee resettlement project, Lamp Lifeboat Ladder and primary implementing partner, Reed Smith LLP, have been short-listed by American Lawyer Media’s Legalweek 2022 Leaders in Tech Law Awards 2022.  We have been nominated in the ‘Innovations in Pro Bono’ category! In September 2019, the government of Canada signed Public Policies authorizing resettlemen ...

Tomorrow, 18 December, is International Migrants Day, a day designed to encourage us to think about the challenges and difficulties of international migration. This year’s theme – It Takes a Community – seeks to remind us of our interdependence, our common humanity and the special and unique contributions we make to our shared communities. Whilst I think that term ‘migrant’ is ...