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Six Syrian Armenian teenagers — Patil, Sylvie, Alik, Taline, Arthur and Mgrdich — are cutting their hair to raise funds for the Cedars Cancer Foundation and to help make wigs for patients who lose their own hair. As the Montreal Gazette reports, one by one they take center stage in the Sourp Hagop auditorium, and the entire student body watches and whoops as their heads are sheared to a soundtrack of Armenian pop.

The cheers are a sign of support for the sacrifice they are making, in this age of flowing hair and selfies.

It is reported that one of the boys, Arthur Kayaballun, left Syria earlier, in 2012, for a short family visit to Armenia. But when violence escalated in Aleppo, his uncle sent them a message — don’t come back. They spent one year in Armenia, then two in Lebanon, before coming to Canada in 2015. They never saw their house or friends again. They left everything behind, including the precious metals refinery Arthur’s father built over a decade. It no longer has a roof. 

It is noted that as of Sept. 30, almost 11,000 Syrian refugees with similar stories had arrived in Quebec since 2015, out of 49,000 in Canada. 
In the spring, the federal auditor general issued a report on resettlement services for Syrians. On the one hand, they were able to access services sooner than other refugees.