The 6th annual STARTTS Refugee Ball was held on October 23, at Cockle Bay Wharf, and was enthusiastically supported by SSI staff. The ball raises much needed funds for the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS).
SSI took 34 young clients on an ‘Amazing Race’-style adventure around Sydney, during the recent school holidays to provide some fun and educational entertainment.
Humanitarian entrants who come to Australia on Women at Risk (WaR) visas are among the most vulnerable of refugees. They have been displaced from their homes and have experienced or been in danger of abuse, harassment and victimisation because of their gender.
SSI Ignite Small Business Start-ups’ client and artist Bassam Jabar is attracting attention for his hand-made glass etchings, with interest from a renowned Victorian gallery. Bassam, originally from Iraq, made his way to Australia via Syria after being granted a humanitarian visa in August 2013.
With many of SSI’s clients living under financial hardship, the organisation took further steps towards supporting their needs by launching its online donations page in time for Anti-Poverty Week in October.
Sarah Yahya, 19, was born hearing impaired in Iraq in 1995, to a Mandaean family that lived in fear for their safety. The Mandaean ethnic-religious group has been increasingly persecuted since not long after Sarah arrived in the world. In the cover of night, aged six, Sarah, her sister and mother, were whisked from their home and driven 12 hours in to Jordan. Once there, they went immediately to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to seek protection. Their father had been arrested and was in prison, serving four years for his beliefs.
Bashir Yousufi was just 13 when he set out on the long journey from Pakistan through Asia to Australia. His father had been killed in Afghanistan by Taliban extremists, Bashir said, because he was of the Hazara ethnic group, and his mother had died from cancer
Customers of Sydney bank teller Asif Haideri come and go, never suspecting he is much different to them. Those who he strikes a conversation with are shocked, he said, to learn he is ethnic Hazara from Afghanistan and was once kidnapped and tortured by the Taliban. “I’m a bank teller and people talk to me every day,” Asif said. “When I say I am from Afghanistan and I came to Australia two years ago, they are shocked. They say, ‘really, I thought you were born here’. I say, no, have you heard of boat people? I am like them. They are shocked.”
The lives and settlement experiences of young refugees will be explored at the fourth and final Speakers’ Series event for 2014 hosted by Settlement Services International (SSI). Titled The strength of youth: young people and their refugee experiences, the event on Tuesday, November 11, will begin with three young people from refugee backgrounds sharing their stories.
Sport is renowned for bringing people from all over the world together, and now cricket has united two seemingly disparate groups of men. Refugees and people seeking asylum have joined members of Knox Grammar School’s ‘Old Boys’ association to hone their bat and ball skills together in the lead up to cricket season. The weekly pre-season cricket clinics at Auburn District Cricket Club on Saturdays have resulted in a mutually beneficial partnership for the 18 or so refugees and asylum seekers, who are clients of SSI, and members of the Old Knox Grammarians’ Association.
Yoga Raja has a talent for “food carving” that is finding appreciative audiences at Sydney weddings and functions. Yoga, 32, is an artist and food – watermelons, carrots and white radish – is his medium. From a watermelon he can carve a life-like human portrait, and from carrots and radish he sculpts bouquets of flowers that people approach to smell as if real.
Tony Podesta believes tennis is a ‘lifetime’ sport. So who better to teach tennis to then recently arrived refugees settling into their new lives in Australia? A group of 8 to 12 children and adults has participated in a Tennis Australia Multicultural Tennis Program for Refugees at the Tony Podesta School of Tennis in Fairfield once a week for the past 10 weeks.
Asylum seekers may not be able to bring many material possessions with them when seeking safety in Australia, but many of them bring impressive skills. To give their talents an outlet, and so more people can enjopy them, Settlement Services International (SSI) an a Sydney music organisation have facilitated opportunities for a group of refugee and asylum seeker musicians from Iran and Burma.
The importance of maintaining a child’s connection to their cultural heritage, language and religion while in foster care should not be underestimated. During NSW Foster Care week, September 14-21, Manager of Multicultural Foster Care Service (MFCS) Mr Ghassan Noujaim, hopes to highlight the important work of the services’ foster carers in helping maintain cultural connections. “Our foster carers are incredible in their dedication to, and support for, keeping cultural links for their foster children,” said Mr Noujaim.
Most of them had never played soccer on grass fields with marked lines before, but in their first season in Australia this special team proved themselves champions. After a thrilling 2-1 win, the Newington Gunners Soccer Club’s team of refugees and asylum seekers won its Grand Final on Saturday, September 13. The players had come from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Nepal and Tajikistan to enjoy safer, better lives in Australia. Many of them are supported by not-for-profit organisation Settlement Services International’s (SSI) humanitarian settlement programs. SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis said watching them play this season had been inspiring. “Knowing just a little about the circumstances these individuals have come from has made watching them enjoy themselves on the soccer field this year an inspiring experience,” Ms Roumeliotis said. “It has been heartwarming to see them put traumatic life experiences in the background while they enjoy the sport they love and make new friends in the community, just like many other Australians enjoy doing. They are another inspiring example of how people who come to Australia as refugees or to apply for refugee status as asylum seekers can, and want, to participate in our communities.
They have escaped crises and horrors around the world to find some peace of mind on soccer fields in western Sydney. Now, seven months after a generous community campaign helped them join a Sydney soccer club, this team of refugees and asylum seekers will challenge for a championship.
Settlement Services International (SSI) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded the tender to deliver Status Resolution Support Services in NSW and ACT. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) has worked with stakeholders over the past 18 months to bring four existing support programs for asylum seekers together into a single program to deliver support services to clients while their immigration status is being resolved. The resulting program is known as Status Resolution Support Services (SRSS)
SSI’s third Speakers’ Series event for 2014 explored the theme: Perception is reality: How do we form our perceptions of refugees and asylum seekers? SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis explained the significance of the theme. “In recent years we have seen a hardening of views, particularly towards asylum seekers, and the existence of these negative views has resulted in refugees and asylum seekers experienceing discrimination, isolation and not feeling safe in their communities,” Ms Roumeliotis said. “So SSI is committed to understanding public opinion and undertaking initiatives to influence and to try to change negative perceptions. To address these negative perceptions we need to understand how they are formed: to what extent are these negative views shaped by political discourse, media or by our own values as Australians?” The panel: Chris Rau, Superintendent Mark Wright, Professor Andrew Markus and Oliver Laughland.
Young people seeking asylum in Australia are in need of many essential items but the gift of free sports shoes and boots will provide something vital for all youth – fun. On August 30, 50 young people living in Sydney on bridging visas will get that gift when the Asylum Sneakers campaign promoted by Welcome to Australia and soccer commentator Les Murray hits town. Leila Druery from the non-profit organisation Welcome to Australia said the campaign idea grew from seeing the affect sport could have. “Asylum Sneakers came about after seeing the incredibly positive impact of sport on young asylum seeker children in detention centres and in the community,” she said. “Sadly, many children’s participation in sport is limited by not being able to afford shoes and sports equipment.” Settlement Services International (SSI) is a leading not-for-profit organisation that provides a range of services in the areas of humanitarian settlement, asylum seeker assistance, accommodation, foster care and disability support in NSW. The young recipients are all from SSI’s Community Support program.
This week marks the second anniversary of Settlement Services International (SSI) delivering support programs to asylum seekers in NSW. From about 15 staff supporting 75 clients in 2012, SSI now has 160 staff members. Manager Humanitarian Services David Keegan said it was a testament to staff and team leaders that the organisation had successfully and efficiently negotiated the large growth in such a short timeframe.