Welcome2Sydney provided an opportunity for nine new arrivals and four volunteer Sydney ambassadors to join an SSI group attending a Sydney Writers' Festival event at Carriageworks last month.
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.
Read more: Armidale enjoys Ezidi food night in partnership with local Café
Sydney’s refugee communities are brimming with solutions for the challenges they face. With a helping hand from SSI, community leaders are being resourced to create projects that close gaps and capitalise on their communities’ strengths.
Read more: Event highlights innovation in western Sydney refugee communities
Iraqi-born and award-winning filmmaker Ali Al Azeez is facilitating a series of filmmaking workshops for the general public in the lead-up to the SSI New Beginnings Winter Festival.
Read more: Award-winning refugee filmmaker unlocks creativity and talents ahead of Refugee Week
Reflecting on times of great pain, strength and resilience, Settlement Services International (SSI) staff and local community members gathered at SSI’s Community Hub at Colyton Public School, to walk down the long path of forgiveness in recognition of Sorry Day.
Read more: SSI staff and Colyton community work towards healing this past Sorry Day
Serena Horton brought together two seemingly disjointed activities, mosaic and surfing, to unite a community of newly arrived refugees and people seeking asylum, around the creation of a unique piece of art - a surfboard adorned with mosaic.
Read more: New arrivals create beautiful mosaic surfboard thanks to volunteer at Community Kitchen
The latest project, launched in Lidcombe last month, helps bring together and support young refugees and their carers through a weekly social soccer meet-up.
Progressing towards a unified Australia — where inclusion and belonging are the rule, not the exception — requires us to create a space where we respect each other. Respect breeds acceptance, which in turn establishes trust. Only when all three elements are in place can we move forward and truly walk together.
Violet Roumeliotis has been recognised as the 2017 Telstra Australian Business Woman of the Year. As the CEO of SSI, Ms Roumeliotis has overseen innovative diversification leading to more than 1,100 per cent revenue growth
