World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is a non-profit international development organization that works to improve education, employment, and empowerment opportunities for youth around the world. Through the Student Refugee Program (SRP), WUSC delivers a unique youth-to-youth refugee settlement program that combines sponsorship with post-secondary education, and puts Canadian institutions and students at the heart of the funding and support structure. WUSC has sponsored over 1,700 students to date.

WUSC is a Canadian national Sponsorship Agreement Holder, meaning they are an organization that has signed an agreement with the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to resettle refugees from abroad through the private sponsorship of refugees. WUSC sponsoring groups are primarily college or university student volunteers who have staff and faculty support. Approximately 80 Canadian campuses sponsor, with a minimum of 5 volunteers per sponsoring group. WUSC has been sponsoring student refugees through other immigration mechanisms since the 1950s as has been a Sponsorship Agreement Holder since 1978.

Student groups act as the official sponsors in our model of refugee sponsorship, and are responsible for all aspects of the sponsorship, from securing the necessary funding (via Memoranda of Understanding with the administration which commit to waiver agreements, and student levies that are collected following WUSC-led referendums), to providing the social and integration support to the incoming refugee students each year.

We welcome you to explore how WUSC McGill operates on campus. With the support of a SSMU fee each student provides, we are currently able to sponsor and resettle 3 refugee students to the McGill community a year.