Good Practice Guide

GOOD PRACTICE GUIDE
3. WHO ARE MIGRANTS, REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS?
3.6 Small and Emerging
Communities
The term 'Small and Emerging
Communities' describes a section of
recently arrived migrant and refugee
communities who are still in the process
of settlement, and facing a number of
concurrent settlement related challenges.
Small and emerging communities'
characteristics include:
• being small in number (generally up
to 7,000)
• having little or no familiarity with
Western culture and lifestyle
• lacking extended family members
and community / religious leaders
• being geographically dispersed.
As a consequence of the majority of
community members being new arrivals
and therefore at 'survival level' for the
first few years, it is difficult for such
communities to be involved in self-help
and community development.
Although many of the characteristics
of small and emerging communities
are common to all new settlers, more
specific needs and gaps also exist.
Some of these include:
• difficulties in accessing or obtaining
language services as there is a
limited number of suitably
qualified/accredited interpreters
and translators
• lack of community
counsellors/mediators to attend to
family disputes or crises
• lack of availability of written material
in required languages due to
constraints around reproducing
written information in small quantities
• difficulty in maintaining
confidentiality and anonymity
due to size of community
• lack of collective resources
• no special consideration in service
delivery due to small size and
geographic dispersal coupled with
political, ethnic or religious
differences within the community
• lack of demographic data for
planning purposes.
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