ICMCEUROPE WelcometoEurope.pdf (5.89 MB)

31
What can other resettlement countries learn from the Australian approach?
One of the strengths of Australia’s resettlement programme is that NGOs
and refugee communities are widely consulted about its planning and operation.
Australia began large-scale resettlement in 1947. Much of the early
focus was on getting new arrivals to ‘assimilate’, with little understanding
of how Australia might benefit from other cultures and new ways of
thinking. Our settlement programmes have improved incrementally as we
have increasingly engaged former refugees in the process. To be effective,
resettlement programmes need to involve former refugees in programme
planning and in delivering services to new arrivals. We need to encourage
and support refugee communities to develop their own structures and their
own responses to the needs of community members.
How are NGOs involved in planning the Australian programme?
Both NGOs and refugee communities are widely consulted in the planning
and operation of the Australian refugee programme. The Refugee Council of
Australia, with government funding support, conducts an annual national
consultation process and prepares a community submission on issues for
consideration in planning the next year’s programme.
Other NGOs are invited to prepare their own submissions, and these are
brought together in an annual meeting of NGO peak bodies 20 and the
Minister for Immigration.
How do you work towards the empowerment of resettled refugees?
One of the best examples of refugee involvement in the planning and
delivery of resettlement services is the Adult Multicultural Education
Services (AMES) Community Guides programme. AMES is contracted by the
Australian Government to provide post-arrival support to refugees settling
in Melbourne and the state of Victoria. Over the past seven years, through
its Community Guides programme, it has employed more than 700 former
refugees on a casual basis to assist new arrivals.
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER VI CHAPTER V
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER III
20 Peak bodies are representative, non-government organisations whose membership predominantly consists
of other (legally unrelated) organisations of allied interests and which are recognised by other peaks
and their sectors generally as representative of the whole of their sector.
CHAPTER VII