Visual artist Maher Al Khoury arrived in Australia seeking asylum from Syria four years ago. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1988, he had a dynamic arts career working across the Middle East as a university lecturer and artist, with exhibitions in Syria and Abu Dhabi.

Single mother and refugee Janet Ferdosian made the courageous decision to flee Iran in 2014 and seek temporary refuge in Turkey, where she lived for three years while waiting for a humanitarian visa.

Members of the NSW Settlement Partnership (NSP) Youth Workers Network will kick off Youth Week 2021 at an event featuring a variety of activities, including a youth-led panel discussion and the premiere of the video Youth Speak.

Early childhood education in the pre-school years is critical to a strong start in life.

Settlement Services International (SSI) has welcomed the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute’s 2020 Mapping Social Cohesion Report and its findings that Australians continue to show strong support for multiculturalism and immigration, yet SSI is concerned about the continuing evidence of high levels of racism against migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds.

“One common thread, that is not often acknowledged, is that anyone who calls Australia home, except for the First Nations people of this land, is a migrant of one form or another."

The settlement experiences of 133 Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan refugee families living in NSW are examined in a new report, which highlights the importance of English language training and other support programs to ensure refugees have a great start to their new life.

Saif Noori understands both hard work and hardship. Before arriving in Australia in May 2018 on a humanitarian visa, Saif was a medical officer at a hospital in Iraq. 

SSI CEO recognised as champion of diversity and inclusion The 34th Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HACCI) Awards announced Settlement Services International (SSI)’s CEO Violet Roumeliotis for its ‘Woman of Influence Award’ last night, Thursday 19 November.

Important milestones such as SSI’s 20th anniversary motivate me to pause from the present and reflect. Looking back over the past 20 years, I cannot help but be amazed at how SSI has both evolved as an organisation and solidified our core mission and values since our founding in early 2000.

Hedayat Osyan is a 28-year-old former refugee from Afghanistan and an SSI Ignite® Small Business Start-ups (Ignite®) entrepreneur who founded a tiling company to support fellow refugees to establish their new lives in Australia.

With the support of IgniteAbility® Small Business Start-ups, high-achieving entrepreneur and autism advocate Haydn Payne launched his own pilot program, PRISM, for job prospects in Blacktown in January 2020.  

After fleeing Syria with her family, Sophie Bejek had been in Australia for only six months when she applied for SSI’s Community Innovation Fund to run community cooking classes.

In 2018, SSI merged with Access Community Services, one of Queensland’s leading organisations in settlement and transition, employment and training, social enterprise and youth service. This merger marked the beginning of a new chapter for the two organisations, enabling both to enhance operations and combine services across two states.

SSI’s history is inextricably linked to its membership base.

SSI has a rich history of providing support to and advocating for the rights of people with disability from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.

A unique approach to regional refugee settlement is delivering strong results in the new settlement location of Armidale, offering insights that will guide other regional centres seeking to welcome newcomers as long-term members of their communities.

Over four years of nurturing and growth, the Friendship Garden at the Auburn Centre for Community blossomed from a community engagement initiative owned and run by SSI to a community-run project.

Immediately after moving to Australia from Sri Lanka in 2018, Jayanthi, who has more than 15 years of experience working in the Non-For-Profit (NFP) sector, began looking for opportunities to volunteer and work with Australian organisations.

When Kim* and her husband first started with SSI’s Multicultural Foster Care program, they thought they would ease themselves into foster caring with short-term care arrangements.