How do I find a refugee to sponsor?

There are two ways to achieve a match between a sponsoring group and a refugee.

Canadians can identify refugees in need of sponsorship through local family members, community groups, churches or ethno-cultural groups. Refugees in need may have been identified from an overseas contact, a friend, a relative of a member of the organization or elsewhere.

Refugees may also be identified in a three-way partnership among the Government of Canada, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and private sponsors. Under the Blended Visa Office-Referred Program (BVOR), we work to find a private sponsor to match with the refugee identified initially by the UNHCR.

The Government of Canada has expanded the BVOR program so that Sponsorship Agreement Holders, Groups of Five and Community Sponsors can all access Syrian refugee files currently in the inventory as part of this program.

Visit Sponsoring a refugee for more information.