They came from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Nepal and Tajikistan. The 20-odd men and teenagers who met one another on a dimly lit park in western Sydney had no money between them to join an established club, so called themselves Auburn United FC.
In the lead up to the big day, Gunners player Shabbir Hussain, who came to Australia from Quetta, Pakistan, said that just being able to play soccer this year had changed his life. Shabbir, 32, who was a police officer in Quetta, fled his remaining family and home after a series of targeted raids and bomb attacks by extremists killed many of his fellow officers and friends.
“Playing soccer has changed my life because before I was feeling alone,” he said. “There was no one to talk and share my life’s tragedy with. Now I have good friends in our team who are my family. I can sit and share everything I had in my life.”
Many of the team members are supported to live in the community by not-for-profit organisation Settlement Services International’s (SSI) humanitarian settlement programs. SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis said they showed such a passion for soccer that it became important to help them join a club and competition.
“These men came from extreme circumstances in crises around the world that most of us could not imagine,” Ms Roumeliotis said. “The team’s achievements this year have really defied the odds. Many of them are on bridging visas that do not allow them to work – they live on an average of $32 a day – so at the start of the year they had no club and no money to join one.
“After a campaign to find sponsorship for them, a number of very generous supporters, including the Newington Gunners Soccer Club came forward to help. The club has been very supportive and sensitive to the needs of this group and we can’t thank them or the other sponsors enough.
“The benefits that come from participating in community activities like soccer shouldn’t be overlooked. It has given these men a boost to their confidence, kept them healthy and connected them with a wonderful community soccer club. Now a championship title is in their sights.”
The Gunners’ club secretary Ben Nilsson said everyone at the club was very proud of the team. “Finishing first in their competition is an outstanding achievement, but from a club’s point of view, they have been a dream team to manage,” he said. “They have volunteered in all club duties including the canteen. They have brought an awareness of the refugee situation to the executive of the club, which has in turn filtered down through the club. We do not believe we had any racial issues in the past, but our interaction with these men has hardened our resolve to accept people for who they are, no matter what they look like or where they are from.”
The Newington Gunners AAM6 team, as it is officially called, finished the season on top of the table in the Granville and Districts Soccer Football Association Open Men’s second division competition.
Grand Final: 2:45pm, Saturday, September 13
Location: Ron Mondy Park, (formerly Guildford Oval) Guildford.
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Media enquiries:
SSI Online Communications Coordinator, Callan Lawrence, 0478 156 491 or 02 8799 6746
SSI Communications Officer, Rekha Sanghi 0422 304 578
SSI Marketing and Communications Manager, Angela Calabrese 0401 284 828
STARTTerS Early Childhood program for trauma recovery and development
What started informally as a mums and bubs group for refugees has developed into a unique model for treating trauma in young children, as well as their parents.
Described as an “integrative sensory motor music therapy”, STARTTerS is an early childhood program for trauma recovery and development that targets 0-6 year olds. As a result it is also helping the parents and carers that accompany their children to the treatment sessions.
NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS) Early Childhood Counsellor and Music Therapist Rosemary Signorelli said she was not aware of another program of this kind.
“STARTTerS uses a variety of techniques and activities that seek to reverse and overcome issues of trauma that children have faced during their short but troubled lifetime, said Ms Signorelli.
“What also makes the program unique is the use of interpreters that engage the parents as well, and builds their trust and confidence in the program.”
Ms Signorelli explained that intervention in the first five years of a child’s life is vital in helping overcome effects of trauma and prevent future mental health issues.
“A nursery rhyme such as ‘incy wincy spider’ has a great theme of resilience and together with the finger movements it’s a simple and engaging song for the children to participate in.”
Ms Signorelli is aware that the program is based on western models of parent participation and praise, and that some parents find it difficult to participate if they are feeling overwhelmed or exhausted, although they can still learn strategies from the sessions which they can take home to use with their child.
“Many parents are dealing with their own physical and mental health issues and their recovery is usually a lot slower than the child’s. Providing them with individual counselling is another unique aspect of the program and if necessary they are referred on to other programs such as Brighter Futures (also being presented at Cultural Shift).”
The program has seen 40 individual children and 45 families since it began in 2011.
Educational expectations and its interface with child wellbeing
Education can be viewed as the only pathway to a stable and secure life for people coming to Australia from other cultures. This can lead parents to put undue pressure on children to perform.
NSW Family and Community Services Community Program Officer Lynn Cohen said problems caused by this cultural pressure were increasingly observed by department staff. This led them to develop a new program targeting educational expectations among specific cultural groups, which she will present at the symposium.
“The issues presented to Community Services as an increase in the notifications received for Chinese and Korean speaking parents physically abusing children because of poor educational performances,” she said.
“So the program has been developed for Chinese and Korean speaking parents but it could be for parents of all Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds (CALD). And often there has been demand from people saying to us, can you do this for the Pacific community or Arab community.”
Ms Cohen’s team worked with education and child development experts from Chinese and Korean speaking cultural backgrounds to develop the program but she said the template could be delivered across CALD groups.
The cultural dynamics underlying the problems were complex, she said, but program facilitators had found the communities receptive to the program.
“We learnt that in the Chinese context, for instance, they came from the environment where you get one child and they get one chance,” she said. “In the Australian context there are many ways to access university and parents need to know this, so that if a child isn’t top of their class, or top of their preschool, it’s not their last chance.”
The team behind the program was the winner of the 2014 Mary Dimech Award for new initiatives, outstanding practice and work in community services.
Supporting young people from a refugee background through settlement
Young people from refugee backgrounds can experience unique challenges, including the horrors of war, abuses and expectations to provide for and lead a family in the early stages of their lives. Settlement Services
International (SSI) Manager Humanitarian Services David Keegan said these experiences created challenges during early settlement for young people, who benefited from a holistic understanding of their needs and circumstances. However, it can be difficult, he said, to understand these complicated backgrounds and cultural challenges.
Mr Keegan has developed an information and training resource, Keeping Their Hopes Alive, in cooperation with Multicultural Youth Affairs Network (MYAN) NSW and Youth Action and Policy Association NSW that is a guide to better understanding these specific needs of young refugees. A workshop on this resource will be presented at the symposium.
Mr Keegan said a large portion of humanitarian entrants to Australia were under the age of 25, and between 14 and 25 years, so special consideration should be given to their needs.
“An example of a common issue we see comes from the experience of young people who tend to settle quicker than their parents,” he said. “They learn the language quicker, make new friends quicker and are generally better supported through education. So what we see is a family dependent on a young person, which can cause conflict.”
Mr Keegan said the workshop he will present is based in research and will work through case studies of the experiences of young refugees and new migrants.
MOSAIC: Solving refugee and migrants everyday legal problems
Legal issues for refugees and migrants can escalate because of their limited understanding of Australia’s system, their limited English skills and financial resources. Migrant Outreach Services, Advice, Information, Community Education (MOSAIC) is a new program of Justice Connect that provides refugees and migrants with free legal advice and representation.
Manager and Principal Lawyer at MOSAIC Liz Simpson said simple legal issues could cascade into major problems for refugees and migrants who aren’t knowledgeable about the system or availability of help. They also often find themselves taken advantage of, she said, because of their vulnerability.
“We see clients and give advice on a one-off basis but we are also able to see clients on an on-going basis if they have merit,” Ms Simpson said. “Because we are a legal service seeing clients regularly, we are also able to target recurring problem areas.
“We have been seeing a lot of mobile phone issues at the moment, because asylum seekers sign up to really expensive contracts and aren’t able to pay them. We have had a lot of success having them waived but now we are also talking to the service providers to ask why these people were signed up to services they can’t afford.
“There are also a lot of employment issues, with people being ripped-off, being under-paid, not being paid or being dismissed for no apparent reason.”
MOSAIC assists clients through these problems and others. Ms Simpson said common legal problems for this sector of the community include fines, mobile phone and electricity bills, motoring accidents, accommodation and employment issues.
Outreach workers from the Refugee Advice and Casework Service also attend sessions with MOSAIC to offer immigration advice. Both organisations face funding challenges and the problem of building awareness of their services within the community and settlement sector. Ms Simpson will present on the MOSAIC service at the symposium.
More and information can be found here.
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Media enquiries:
SSI Online Communications Coordinator, Callan Lawrence, 0478 156 491, or, 02 8799 6746
SSI Marketing and Communications Manager, Angela Calabrese 0401 284 828
Matthew Cleary, Executive Officer St Vincent de Paul Society Support Services said the Society was very pleased to be partnering with SSI to deliver Ability Links and to allow people with disability to live their life the way they wish.
“Ability Links is placing people with disability at the centre of decision making about their lives and welcoming communities to encourage inclusion of people with disability, their families and carers,” said Mr Cleary.
Claerwen Little, Director UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families was pleased the organisation had been chosen as a partner with SSI for the new initiative.
“UnitingCare is proud to partner with SSI and be involved in Ability Links. It’s a ground breaking program promoting community inclusion and participation for people with a disability. It is work we know needs to be done well, and we are committed to that.”
Linkers work with people with disability, their families and carers to help them plan for their future, build on their strengths and skills, and develop networks in their own communities so they can do what they want with their lives – outside of the traditional disability service system.
It provides people with a locally based, first point of contact to support people to access support and services in their local communities.
Linkers also work with local communities to help them become more welcoming and inclusive of people with disability.
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St Vincent de Paul Society Media Contact: Yolanda Saiz 0417 446 430
Settlement Services International Media Contact: Angela Calabrese 0401 284 828
UnitingCare Media Contact: Nicole Jackson 0412 201 023
Masoud taught himself to paint with coffee while in detention and he has said he still prefers the look of the medium over other materials now that he lives in the community.
“My inspirations for painting were all those dark days that I experienced while staying at different detention centres for over 12 months,” he said. “I used to imagine the sun was crying for people who were locked up, with no freedom, inside the detention centre.”
Another artist exhibiting is Victor Youssef, 72, from Egypt, who has been in Australia less than 12 months.
Victor has brought a collection of work made by etching images into copper sheets with him to Australia that he hopes to sell so he can rent a studio space. The images include a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, Jesus and the Virgin Mary and pharaohs. His work is displayed in churches in the USA, Italy and Egypt.
“If I sell this here, it will change my life,” Victor said. “I like Australia very much, that is why I would like to make something here that is better than I have ever done before.”
Other artists exhibiting work are:
- Atefeh Hekmat: Iran, oil painting;
- Babak Jahangirzadeh: Iran, oil painting;
- Bassam Jabar: Iraq, glass carving;
- Damon Agha Mohammad Bagher: Iran, photography;
- Hayder Shakir Al Bdairi: Iraq, mixed media;
- Homa Nozari: Iran, photography;
- Lutheskumar Sinnathurai: Sri Lanka, oil painting;
- Madhi Jahangirzadeh: Iran, oil painting;
- Masoud Akhava Ghassabzadeh: Iran, coffee painting;
- Mohammad Reza Fattah: Iran, acrylic painting and drawing;
- Mohammed AlanezIraq, photography;
- Othman Omar Kareem: Iraq, drawing;
- Sefullah Akbari: Iraq, oil painting;
- Thasangan Sasitharan: Sri Lanka, oil painting;
- Victor Youssef: Egypt, copper etching.
Details: The Art is Our Voice exhibition is on at the Verge Gallery, Jane Foss Russell Plaza, University of Sydney, Darlington, 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, from May 14 to 22.
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Media enquiries:
SSI Online Communications Coordinator, Callan Lawrence, 0478 156 491, or, 02 8799 6746
SSI Marketing and Communications Manager, Angela Calabrese 0401 284 828