What does it take to ‘resettle’ a refugee?

People who come to Australia as refugees have huge strengths. For those of us who support their resettlement, our job isn’t to rescue them – it’s to maximise those strengths so they can live independent, meaningful lives, where they can realise their full potential.?

Settlement requires a whole eco-system of support from organisations like SSI, government funders and services, and – importantly – community leaders and refugee-led organisations.??

I was pleased recently to join my long-time colleague Om Dhungel, FAICD for a panel discussion about his new book, Bhutan to Blacktown, facilitated by Scientia Professor Jane McAdam from the Kaldor Centre.?

The book details Om’s incredible journey from a refugee himself to a prolific advocate and community leader, supporting refugees and other newcomers as they begin new lives in Australia.?

Professor McAdam’s questions were insightful and reflected a striking theme: meaningfully involving refugees in resettlement decision-making.??

It’s something that is core to our work at SSI. In NSW alone last year, we ran more than 180 community engagement activities and events with close to 2,000 individuals from cultural and linguistic backgrounds ranging from Chinese to Afghan, Ukrainian, Iraqi, Syrian, Indian and more.??

When you look to our workforce, you can also see that SSI is not just working with diaspora communities – SSI is an extension of them. Our latest staff survey shows 71% of staff were born overseas, representing 76 different countries – a significant portion of whom are from refugee backgrounds.?

This means that when new arrivals touch down at Sydney airport, they are always greeted with ‘welcome to Australia’ in their preferred language.?

The conversation at the panel launch looked at the role of service providers in refugee resettlement.??

I believe is that there is a misconception that service providers are somehow separate to community organisations. In SSI’s case, we’re one and the same.?

We delivery place-based, local services that are both informed by and delivered by people with lived experience.?

But as a service provider, we also offer things that many community based organisations cannot, so there it’s necessary to protect the role of both actors in this ecosystem.?

If I look at my own Greek community, there are over 800 brotherhoods all working in isolation. They play a critical role in building inclusion and supporting new arrivals, but they simply don’t have the infrastructure to support the scale of refugee resettlement we have in Australia.?

A good example of this is when Kabul fell to the Taliban and we had just hours to prepare for the arrival of hundreds of refugees.??

Our staff worked with the Afghan diaspora to prepare for these arrivals, but they also had the resources and expertise to rapidly scale support for this cohort.?

They sourced accommodation and basic goods –capitalising on their hard-won networks and relationships to convince stores to remain open overnight so they could purchase clothes and essentials for the new arrivals.?

And we had the bench strength to keep this preparation in motion 24/7 without burning out individuals, meaning that at 9pm when the plane touched down from Afghanistan, we were at the airport, ready and waiting to welcome this group of new arrivals.?

I’m not saying one is more important than the other – just that there is a role for both service providers and refugee-led organisations, and that sometimes, organisations can be a hybrid of both.?

The discussion with Om and Jane was challenging, it was thoughtful, and it was invigorating. I offer my heartfelt congratulations to Om on the launch of his new book.?

I will leave you with Om’s own words, which capture the duality of the refugee experience and his own unique optimism and insight: “I lost my possessions, my salary, my status, my career, my country. And in that fall, I gained everything.”?