The SSI Speakers’s Series participants.
What can be done to improve vulnerable workers’ knowledge about their rights? What work needs to be done with employers? What role can refugee and migrant settlement organisations play in advocating for fairer conditions at work?
Register now for your chance to hear our distinguished panel of speakers discuss what can be done to inform and protect these vulnerable workers.
Date: Thursday, November 24, 2016
Time: 6-8pm
Location: Settlement Services International, 2/158 Liverpool Road, Ashfield
Speakers’ Series guest speakers
Mel Gatfield
Mel Gatfield was elected Secretary of the NSW Branch of United Voice (formerly the Liquor, Hospitality & Miscellaneous Union) in May 2016, prior to which she was the Assistant Secretary for eight years. United Voice is a union of workers organising to win better jobs, stronger communities, a fairer society and a sustainable future. Mel is responsible for the campaigning and organising, and community engagement work in the branch. Prior to working at United Voice, Mel worked for 16 years at the Finance Sector Union (FSU) holding the positions of organiser, industrial officer and Branch Assistant Secretary. Mel has a Bachelor of Arts from UNSW majoring in Industrial Relations and Political Science.
Michele Grigoletti
Michele (Mike) Grigoletti is the founder of Australia Solo Andata, an independent research group that documents the contemporary migratory phenomenon of young Italian citizens in Australia. The group has partnered with Migrantes Foundation of Italy – the Italian Bishops’ Conference’s reference body on migration – to film the documentary 88 days on Australian farms and to publish the research Giovani Italiani in Australia: un “viaggio” da temporaneo a permanente (Young Italians in Australia. From a temporary to a permanent “journey”, Italy 2016).
Nicola Piper
Nicola Piper is Professor of International Migration at the University of Sydney where she also is Director of the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre. Her research focuses on international labour migration and advocacy politics in relation to global and regional governance as well as the Asia-Pacific region. She is co-founder and Vice-President of the Global Migration Policy Associates and external advisor on migration research to the United Nations Institute for Social Development in Geneva.
Jenny Stanger
As a co-founder and staff person at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST) in Los Angeles, Jenny has worked as a case manager and advocate for survivors of human trafficking and slavery since 1998. Jenny relocated to Australia in 2005 and co-founded the Anti-Slavery Project in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. In 2007, Jenny became the Supervisor of Australia’s only refuge for women who have experienced human trafficking, slavery and/or slavery-like practices, a project of The Salvation Army. Currently, Jenny is National Manager of the Salvos The Freedom Partnership to End Modern Slavery, which addresses slavery in Australia through policy reform, community organising and private sector engagement. Jenny is a member of the Australian Government’s National Roundtable on People Trafficking and Slavery convened by the Minister for Home Affairs and she has consulted for the US State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Facilitator
Anna Patty
Anna Patty is Workplace Editor at the Sydney Morning Herald. She is a former Education Editor and a state political reporter at the Herald and has previously worked at The Times of London, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney and The Sun Herald in Sydney, where she focused on health, education and political reporting. She started her career at the Illawarra Mercury in Wollongong and the Southern Highland News in Bowral. She has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English Literature, a Master of Arts degree in Journalism and is close to finishing a Law degree.
About the SSI Speakers’ Series
During 2016, Settlement Services International (SSI) is hosting a series of talks and panel discussions on current refugee and asylum seeker issues and related topics. The SSI Speakers’ Series aims to inform, connect and challenge SSI staff, stakeholders and the wider community by providing opportunities for discussion that enhance knowledge and awareness about relevant issues impacting the organisation’s clients and their communities.
Kane Alkoraghooli is receiving career support from an SSI Youth@Work mentor.
Contact Youth@Work now
T: (02) 8799 6700
M: 0487 680 207
E: youthatwork@ssi.org.au
Twenty-two-year-old Mr Alkoraghooli studied IT in Syria, but when the country’s civil war forced him to seek refuge in Australia 18 months ago, he found himself dealing with new employment and educational choices.
“We had trouble with settling at first which made it harder for me to plan what to study or what to aim for in my career,” he said. “After a while, I started looking into my options and feeling more settled than before. I started doing a building design course in TAFE and I also volunteered with SSI.”
When his volunteering resulted in a job offer, Mr Alkoraghooli jumped at the opportunity and now works in the SSI team that introduces refugees to their new homes.
“It gives you some kind of a motivation – that I’m now doing what someone else did for me,” he said.
Through his work with SSI, Mr Alkoraghooli also found out about Youth@Work – a flexible mentoring program that connects experienced professionals with young workers of migrant and refugee backgrounds. Participants are supported for up to six months, during which time young workers are supported to overcome employment barriers and identify and work towards long-term career goals.
In Mr Alkoraghooli’s case, he was paired with an experienced retired business analyst who has a wealth of experience in the IT sector and a keen interest in community services.
While it’s still early days, Mr Alkoraghooli has already developed a strong connection with his mentor and is confident the Youth@Work program will help him to learn more about how to achieve his career goals.
“I’d like to get my mind straight about what I want to do in the future,” he said. “Every industry has things you’d only know about if you worked there for a few years. These things can be taught easily if you have someone who has experience in this field that they’re willing to pass on to younger people.”
While Mr Alkoraghooli’s career aspirations are still a work in progress, he has his sights set on business services, administration or management.
“I’m looking forward to finding out about the experience that my mentor has had and the different things they’ve done. That kind of information helps you to decide whether you want to pursue a career like that or not.”
Youth@Work is currently open to young people of refugee or migrant backgrounds who are interested in getting one-on-one support and advice to help them reach their employment goals.
Alice Kswani, 24, is working as a design and customer services officer at eyewear manufacturer Dresden Optics, while also undertaking an industrial design course to build experience for when she applies for university next year.
“Australia opened up for me the opportunity to start again and study what I love,” she said. “My aim is to study architecture at UTS.”
Architecture is a long-held passion of Ms Kswani’s; she narrowly missed out on studying it at a university in Syria, instead pursuing her second choice of biology.
“When I started university the first semester, everything was fine,” she said. “The second semester, the war started and everything changed. We only went to the laboratory classes because they were really important. We studied the lectures at home because we needed to limit the amount of time we were on the roads.
“War is war in any country. It was just something we couldn’t imagine happening in our country. When the war started happening in Iraq, we thought it wouldn’t happen in Syria. While we knew the whole area was in danger, we didn’t think we had those issues in our country. But just like that, everything changed and it was not in our hands.”
Ms Kswani and her family eventually fled their home in Damascus, residing in Lebanon for two years before resettling in Australia in June 2015.
The first English conversation Ms Kswani had on arrival was with her SSI case manager, who gave the family local support to settle in Sydney under the Humanitarian Settlement Services (HSS) program.
“It was so cool to start using my English,” she said. “I was really worried about my university and my studies, so our case manager started giving me tips for how to start again here. She also went with us to all the banks and to Centrelink. We started to do everything together. We didn’t know about any of that before we came here, because it’s not the same as in our country.”
Ms Kswani soon became an active participant in a number of SSI’s youth initiatives, including a pilot employment project from the Youth Collective: Gateway to Your Future.
As part of the project, Ms Kswani and 10 other newly arrived young people received specialised employment training, work experience opportunities, and one-on-one mentoring support to help them identify and achieve their employment goals.
Ms Kswani signalled her interest in pursuing a career in architecture and design so, following a two-week foundational skills training course at TAFE Granville, she began a six-week placement with Dresden Optics.
“It was amazing,” she said. “I was so happy and excited, thinking I would love to work there. At the beginning, I was afraid to contact the customers because I was still learning English, but step by step, they encouraged me just to have a go with it.”
After the placement finished, Dresden Optics offered Ms Kswani a job, which she happily accepted. She’s now waiting to apply for university in the New Year and is undertaking a TAFE Certificate IV in industrial design in the meantime.
Ms Kswani said she had been lucky to find work so quickly after arriving in Australia, which she credits to her involvement in SSI initiatives that extended beyond the support offered under the HSS program.
Just last week, Ms Kswani signed up for Youth@Work – an innovative program that uses mentoring to help young workers from refugee and migrant backgrounds adapt to the Australian workplace and work towards future employment goals.
Ms Kswani will soon start meeting with an experienced architect for regular mentoring sessions that will help her achieve her career aspirations.
“I have a lot of goals,” she said. “I don’t know if one life will be enough for me. I would like to be someone who gives back to the country. Australia has given me a lot. Hopefully one day I can also go back to my country again and rebuild it. I would like to be able to help my country when I am strong enough.”
Youth@Work is currently looking for more young people of refugee or migrant backgrounds who are interested in getting one-on-one support and advice to help them reach their employment goals. Full details are at the link below:
SSI and Welcome to Australia hosted the Sydney arm of the national diversity celebrations, which took place in capital cities and regional centres all over Australia.
Despite cloudy skies, hundreds of Sydneysiders turned out to promote unity, respect and inclusion, and to hear from speakers including Welcome to Australia ambassador Mariam Veiszadeh, NSW Labor Party MP Jihad Dib, Greens NSW MP Mehreen Faruqi, and Racial Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane.
Speaking at the event, lawyer and former refugee Deng Thiak Adut encouraged the crowds to respond with love when faced with xenophobic and racist actions.
“If they hate you, love them back because love is more powerful,” he said. “For this country and for us to move forward, we’ve got to love one another. We’ve got to love the kids and look to their future.
“I want you to ask yourself, what would my children think one day? What will we tell them when we’re old? Will we say, ‘I wish I could have done that’? That’s the most cynical thing to say – you can’t ‘wish’ you could have done it; do something right now. Let’s welcome each other.”
Also in attendance was Deputy Leader of the Opposition Tanya Plibersek, who spoke about the experiences of her parents when they came to Australia in the early 1950s as migrants from Slovenia.
“The settlement services in the 1950s were not nearly as great as the work Settlement Services International and the other organisations do today,” Ms Plibersek said. “Everything my parents got they were very grateful for, but there wasn’t a lot of support in those days. What really made a difference was the hand of friendship and the welcome they got from their neighbours; from the people that lived on our street, from the other parents at the school.
“And that’s something that every single one of us can do; every single one of us can extend the hand of friendship and show welcome.”
Also speaking at the event, SSI Chairman Kamalle Dabboussy said one of the reasons it was so important to welcome new arrivals was because they represent Australia’s future.
“Our parents came to Australia to work hard to provide for themselves, to provide for their children, and to provide for their future, which we share in today,” he said.
Events such as Walk Together are an opportunity to remind the wider Australian community of the importance of having a culture of welcome – something that is an extension of the country’s traditional values of mateship and fair go, Mr Dabboussy said.
“For SSI’s part, we are in the business of doing ‘welcome to Australia’,” Mr Dabboussy said. We work with people who have been fortunate enough to be creating a new life in Australia, helping them build their dreams for the future,” he said.
“Today’s event is wonderful because it’s reaffirming that culture of welcome to Australia. It’s a very powerful message for new arrivals to hear.”
Following the speeches, the crowd travelled from Belmore Park in Sydney’s CBD to Victoria Park for a family-friendly festival that included multicultural food, music, dance, stalls, and an appearance from special guests the Sydney Thunder and GWS Giants.
The day was a resounding success, as demonstrated by the diverse crowd that turned out to show Australian can be a nation known for its compassion, generosity and welcome.
Actor Zoe Carides reading to children and mothers.
The children, aged two to 15 years old, had a day full of activities on October 4, with a mosaic and embroidery workshop, lunch and the visit of Russ the Story Bus — a bus converted into a mobile library by the SWF.
“Russ the Story Bus is a creative space where children can browse a library full of the latest children’s books, choose a book to take home and listen to a story read by one of our volunteers,” SWF Head of Children & Young Adults Programs Claire Sawyer said.
The bus, which started bringing books to children in Western Sydney in 2014, has been decorated outside by internationally celebrated children’s author, illustrator and Academy Award winner Shaun Tan, from Western Australia.
For this event, Russ the Story Bus drove to the Friendship Garden that SSI maintains in Auburn and opened its door to an excited group of children who ran inside to make sure they could get thebooks they wanted.
After the children had chosen books to take home, Australian actors Natalie Saleeba, Zoe Carides and Laurence Coy arrived at the bus to read stories to an enthusiastic audience.
“When the bus arrived, the young kids were enthralled about reading books inside and thought it was really cool,” SSI Community Engagement team member Diana Nguyen said.
“The rest of the activities we had planned for the day also went very well and everyone was happy and running around excitedly.”
“Initially we had prepared the mosaic and embroidery activities for the mothers, but the kids appeared to have engrossed themselves in the mosaics while the mothers enjoyed each other’s company.”
SSI Arts & Culture Program’s collaboration with SWF began in 2015 as part of the My Story project , where children aged 5 to 18 supported by SSI programs participated in a series of workshops as a platform for telling their stories as the new faces of Western Sydney. The touching texts resulting from the workshops were published on the SWF website.
Russ the Story Bus will continue visiting schools in the Western Sydney area in November and will hit the road in December heading towards rural NSW, where it will bring books and joy to primary schools located in Orange, Bathurst and Dubbo, among others.
To find out more about the bus’ upcoming dates and locations, visit the SWF website.
The Senator met with CMRC Executive Director Melissa Monteiro and her management team to discuss delivery of settlement services, sector updates and the changing needs of refugee and migrant cohorts over the past year.
Particular focus was given to family and youth-related issues, with employment, family violence and mental health featuring. There was also discussion about a new Parramatta Real Estate Engagement Project to address housing issues new arrivals face.
Priscella Mabor, Manager of CMRC’s Department of Social Services funded Youth Transition Support Program (YTSP), explained how YTSP had given CMRC a valuable opportunity to pilot programs to engage with youth from refugee backgrounds.
She said YTSP enhanced young people’s ability to remain at high school, transition to further education, and to improve their job readiness to enter the Australian workplace and culture.
Most importantly, it helped CMRC to engage in dialogue with business and employers about the key benefits which will flow when supporting a diverse workforce.
A diverse workforce of migrants and refugees traditionally had an extremely high work ethic, she said, but only once young people’s support systems were in place. They included mental health support, supported accommodation, confidence to speak and be heard, and being able to exist in a community without fear of persecution and unconscious bias because of their ethnicity, religion or accent.
Ms Mabor said the pilot had provided service delivery to 520 clients, with over 70 employment-related outcomes, with CMRC’s partnership-led model of integrated support.
She said the pilot had afforded CMRC a valuable insight into the lives of highly traumatised and vulnerable youth.
“Youth are like the rest of us except magnified,” Ms Mabor said. “They resettle and engage through the process of self-determination — a need to connect, feel a sense of value and share a sense that they have some control over decisions made about their future.”
Ms Mabor said a key underlying issue across CMRC’s refugee youth clients was “trust” — or lack of it.
“Youth are extremely difficult to engage with unless trained staff put in the required hours and resources to break down those barriers,” she said. “This is a relational way of working. This is part of the reason why there is often great resistance to access mainstream services — with people who are effectively strangers.”
Ms Mabor said complex engagement tools were required when working with such an extremely marginalised cohort: young people who felt isolated from family, peers, community and country.
CMRC was seeing an increase in young people who didn’t feel the power to even speak up, even with functional English, she said.
“They feel their accent will be a cause of ridicule or discrimination,” Ms Mabor said. “We have young people living tri-cultural lives, trying to assimilate and assume the hat of whatever situation they find themselves in: the culture of their adopted country, the culture of their birth country and the culture of the refugee camp or host country where they grew up.”
Ms Mabor said, “As CMRC celebrates YTSP programs, and the youth leaders who have helped drive and co-design our programming, we always need to keep in mind that our work has only just begun with our youth — the future of our country.”
SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis.
The film is an honest portrayal of one refugee family’s resettlement story in Australia, with Constance Okot, mother of six, confronting her painful past in war-torn Sudan, risking everything in Australia so her family can thrive.
Constance said: ‘In Africa I was fighting for survival; in the refugee camp I was fighting for human rights; and here in Australia, I’m fighting for belonging.”
SSI’s preview screening was attended by 60 guests and colleagues from migrant resource centres, multicultural and diversity services, community councils, local police and support services.
A Q&A session following the screening — moderated by Impact Producer Allison Henry and including the director, Belinda Mason, CEO of Northern Settlement Services, Lulu Tantos, SSI’s Government & Member Relations Manager, Esta Paschalidis-Chilas, and Mukhllad Alkoraghooli (a former refugee now working with SSI) — was passionate and thought provoking.
I hope as many people as possible get to see this wonderful film to raise awareness of the experiences of refugees, particularly women who are marginalised, to increase leadership and participation opportunities for refugees. It is particularly relevant for those living in regional areas, and to bolster support for refugees suffering from trauma.
If you haven’t used up your box of tissues watching Constance on the Edge, another challenging film I encourage you to see is The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe.
This documentary — described as a harrowing, life-affirming and an overwhelming emotional experience — follows the story of four charismatic and inspirational African women, now living in Australia, who, with the help of an acclaimed theatre director, turned their stories of survival into “a joyous theatre of humanity” that has filled venues from western Sydney, to the city, and internationally.
It, too, offers a message of hope and support for women and children who have suffered around the world, whether in the context of war or domestic situations.
The difficulties of finding a new home were also on my mind last month, when I had the pleasure of attending a meeting with the SSI Multicultural Foster Care team in Bankstown, where managers and staff spoke about the program’s growth since its inception almost four years ago.
Operations Manager, Out-of-Home Care, Ghassan Noujaim, said since January 2013 the team had cared for 160 children, who found a safe and stable home thanks to SSI.
After listening to the speakers and others present that day, I think it is very important to highlight how SSI case workers go above and beyond their job description to provide a high-quality service because they believe in what they do.
Their positive attitude and effort, added to the fact that many of the staff in the Multicultural Foster Care team can provide bilingual and bicultural support, results in further improvements to the quality of the service we provide and that ultimately benefits the foster children they are supporting.
Looking ahead — SSI’s AGM on November 22 will be an opportunity to celebrate recent successes and engage members, stakeholders and supporters with plans for the future. Details will be available closer to the date.
“At home, fajitas weren’t something we would have every day but they were something that was special to me,” Mr Martin said. “If I was celebrating something at school or work, I’d come home and ask my grandmother if she could make them for me.
“Growing up, it was always one of my favourite dishes. So, when I migrated to Australia, I called my grandmother to ask if she could give me the recipe so I could make it myself. Step by step, I’d call her again so that it would be perfect.”
Mr Martin has lived in Australia for six years and his girlfriend’s mother, Bibiana Agudelo, works for SSI as an internal audit manager.
“I love to cook, so every time I’m at her place I cook for the family,” Mr Martin said. “One day Bibiana asked me if I would like to come and help SSI at Community Kitchen, and I loved the idea.
“I’m an amateur boxer and most of the fights I’ve done have been charity fights, either for suicide awareness or cancer awareness, so I like to be involved in everything I can to help other people.”
Mr Martin and a team of SSI staff and volunteers cooked up a storm for a Latin fiesta themed Community Kitchen last week, serving the chicken fajitas with a side of guacamole and black beans, washed down with non-alcoholic sangria.
Authentic chicken fajitas from grandmother’s recipe.
Chicken fajitas
Serves four
Ingredients:
Four chicken breasts, cut into strips
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 medium red onion, diced
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
A pinch of ground cumin
Juice from 1 lime
Olive oil
1 yellow capsicum
1 red capsicum
1 green capsicum
A handful of fresh coriander
400g mushrooms, diced
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional:
Guacamole
Canned black beans
Tortillas
Method:
- Cut the capsicums into strips and discard the seeds.
- Place the capsicum into a pan with the mushrooms, onion, and chicken breasts, and cook until the chicken starts to sweat.
- Add the chilli, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper, and mix well.
- Continue stirring every few minutes.
- Once the chicken has been on the stove for a combined total of 5–7 minutes, remove the pan from the heat.
- Serve with guacamole, black beans and tortillas.
Guacamole
Serves four
Ingredients:
2 avocados
Juice from 1 lime
1 green chilli, finely chopped
Coriander, finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Scoop out the avocados and mix the flesh in a blender until soft.
- Pour into a bowl and stir in the lime juice, chilli, coriander, salt and pepper until combined. Serve.
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Najeeba Wazefadost, Tenneh Kpaka and Fatima Kourouche were finalists in the Australian Centre for Leadership for Women’s (ACLW) recent Diversity Awards, in recognition of work they’ve done to empower women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.
First place in the category went to Hazara Women of Australia — an organisation Ms Wazefadost co-founded to increase access to employment and educational opportunities for women from the Afghan community and to reduce their social isolation.
Ms Kpaka was recognised as an individual for the work she has undertaken as the chair of the Australian National Committee on Refugee Women, where she led several projects designed to support women from CALD backgrounds into leadership roles in their communities.
Ms Kourouche was recognised for her work as the founding president of the Olivetree Women’s Network, which connects CALD women and girls with mentoring and social opportunities that help them to reach their full potential in the areas of employment, education and training.
SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis said the recognition of the three women’s work was particularly important in light of the awards’ stringent criteria.
“These awards were about highlighting the work of unsung diversity champions and recognising their efforts to include and empower women, especially those from marginalised social groups,” she said.
“Ms Wazefadost, Ms Kpaka and Ms Kourouche spend every work day supporting and empowering people from vulnerable communities. The fact that they then dedicate such a significant portion of their leisure time to doing the same is a testament to their drive and compassion.”
Ms Roumeliotis congratulated the diversity champions on their well-deserved recognition.
“All three women have displayed real ingenuity in noticing and then addressing obstacles that stop women from CALD backgrounds from fulfilling their potential. They should be applauded for their diligence,” she said.
The cooking lesson with students on placement from NSW Health aimed to teach people about easy and healthy cooking, with all ingredients available for purchase afterwards from The Staples Bag pop-up store. The Staples Bag social enterprise sells heavily discounted food staples across twelve different locations in NSW, and has held a pop-up store at Potts Point The Wayside Chapel every Wednesday, from 12.30 to 2.30pm.
The cooking lesson and pop-up store were another step in the relationship between The Staples Bag and The Wayside Chapel communities since their partnership began in February this year. The Partnership gives local residents access to affordable and healthy food to help address issues of food insecurity in Sydney.
“At Staples Bag we are committed to empowering our community’s low income earners by providing easy access to low-cost and high-quality nutritious food,” Mr Terry Wilson, Manager SSI Employment and Enterprises, said.
“We’re aware that a healthy approach to meal preparation might not be top of mind when someone is struggling to make ends meet.
“With this lesson, The Staples Bag team has been able to demonstrate that a healthy and nutritious lifestyle can be achieved on a low budget.”
The team of Dietetics students showed how to prepare spaghetti Bolognese, a family classic that is good a source of nutrition due to the amount of meat and vegetables it contains, NSW Heath Community HIV Dietician Rosalind Moxham said.
“The idea is to show how to prepare meals that have a high nutritional value, but taking into account the products available at the Staples Bag and the kitchen equipment most visitors in this community have access to,” Ms Moxham said.
“This was our first cooking demonstration but we’re keen to do more in the future to support disadvantaged communities, such as social housing tenants.”
The students have also contributed to the program by creating meal plans, recipe cards and information on nutrition and food storage that will soon be available on the Staples Bag website.
The standard Staples Bag includes around $70 worth of nutritious and essential food items such as milk, bread, assorted pantry staples, seasonal vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood and fruit, for $20. There are is also a vegetarian option for $15 and a family hamper, designed to feed 3-4 people for a week, for $30.
You can buy your Staples Bag at The Wayside Chapel, 29 Hughes Street, Potts Point, every Wednesday between 12.30pm and 2.30pm. Alternatively, you can visit the Staples Bag retail store Monday to Friday between 9.30am and 4.30pm in Campsie, or order online at www.thestaplesbag.com.au.
The Staples Bag is a social enterprise of: