Supports refugees from the moment they arrive.

Settlement Services International (SSI), in partnership with Cricket NSW and Cricket Australia, today launched The Welcome Project to provide Afghan evacuees access to Australia’s favourite sport, cricket.

Access Community Services Limited (Access) is one of 19 organisations to receive funding for three years to connect Queensland people with opportunities for inclusion in local employment, services, social networks and industries.

SSI nominee Bashar Hanna OAM was one of 10 social change-makers announced winners at the 2021 Third Sector Awards, an annual award celebrating leadership and innovation in the purpose and impact-driven sector.

Settlement Services International’s (SSI) Humanitarian Settlement Program Women Committee has partnered with Liverpool Women’s Health Centre (LWHC) and Mission Australia to encourage refugee women to stay healthy, informed and connected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A unique approach to regional refugee settlement is delivering strong results in the new settlement location of Armidale, offering insights that will guide other regional centres seeking to welcome newcomers as long-term members of their communities.

Over four years of nurturing and growth, the Friendship Garden at the Auburn Centre for Community blossomed from a community engagement initiative owned and run by SSI to a community-run project.

“There are many, many honest and hardworking taxpayers, now unemployed in our communities who have almost no support. They are in serious crisis,” said SSI Community Engagement Practitioner, Paula Ben David.

Since moving to Australia in 1998 due to political and civil unrest in Iraq, Bashar Hanna has faced and overcome the many challenges of establishing himself personally and professionally in a foreign land.

The pandemic has changed how communities come together, and 2020 presented a challenge that required Settlement Services International (SSI) and Refugee Week partners to readapt usual modes of engagement for events and celebrations.

New research by Settlement Services International and the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, challenges narrow economic definitions of successful refugee settlement and, instead, suggests social and civic dimensions are equally valid markers of refugee integration.

Eighty-two signatories have endorsed an open pledge to support an affordable, inclusive community refugee sponsorship program in Australia, launched by SSI and 65 other community groups prior to the first-ever Global Refugee Forum (GRF), hosted by UNHCR in Geneva in December 2019.

Armidale Regional Council, a key partner in a Settlement Services International (SSI) program to relocate Ezidi refugees from Syria and northern Iraq, has won the Government Award in the 2019 Human Rights Awards, presented by the Australian Human Rights Commission in Sydney on December 13.

A retired police superintendent, a dance artist and members of a Community Hub were among recipients of SSI’s 2019 Community Appreciation Awards.

A unique approach to regional refugee settlement is delivering strong results for integration and refugee retention in the new settlement location of Armidale, offering insights that will guide other regional centres seeking to welcome newcomers as long-term members of their communities.

In partnership with Settlement Services International (SSI), the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) is highlighting food during Refugee Week (June 16-22, 2019) and asking everyone to ‘Share a meal, share a story’.

On April 30, eleven men and women from the Ezidi community were involved in a traditional food night at the Café Patisserie on Taylor Street in Armidale.   The evening was the result of a beautiful relationship, which flourished as a local Ezidi family regularly dropped off bread to their local café, just as they would do for their neighbours back in their home country.

With NDIS now providing participants with more choice and control when they purchase the supports and equipment they need to achieve their goals and to live a better life, businesses providing disability services or interested in learning how to provide services for people with disabilities should be alert to the new opportunities this presents.

Seven projects supporting refugee communities in south-west Sydney have received a boost from not-for-profit Settlement Services International’s (SSI) $50,000 Community Innovation Fund.

Hello and welcome to the first edition of Settlement Services International’s (SSI) Coffs Harbour Community News! My name is Lisa Steward and I’m SSI’s Community Engagement Coordinator for the Coffs Harbour area.