SSI's self-funded Arts and Culture program encourages cultural engagement and nurtures artists and cultural practitioners from refugee and migrant backgrounds.

From First Nations to newcomers, innovators, movers, shakers and everyone in between, New Beginnings Festival is where you belong.

As part of its commitment to advancing women and girls’ empowerment at local, national and international levels, Settlement Services International (SSI) is to host a virtual panel to a global network, “Women’s Economic Empowerment Across Borders – A new age of entrepreneurship”.

October is Indigenous Business Month. SSI acknowledges that empowering Indigenous business empowers Self-Determination.  

Shortly after migrating to Australia in 2015, Zhen Hua Lin suffered an allergic reaction to antibiotics that rendered him completely vision impaired.

Tatjana Lukic-Co was just 13 years old when her family was forced to flee her home in former Yugoslavia, seeking temporary refuge in Germany before gaining asylum in Australia.

Refugee and entrepreneur Ashod Paloulian is a man of many talents. He trained to become a professional tennis player in his hometown of Aleppo, Syria, before relocating to Sydney to begin a new life.

It started with the notion that a thriving, resilient and diverse community is the indicator of a successful neighbourhood. So, add a newly regenerated urban area with a place-based business mentorship program, and see the community flourish.

After leaving Iraq and spending over a year in Jordan, Roben Noonoo arrived in Australia as a refugee in February 2020 with his wife and son.

For Lebanese migrant Hala Abdelnour, a vision to facilitate an intersectional and inclusive response to domestic violence is becoming a reality through her start-up business, Institute of non-violence (IoNV).

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.

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

Last week marked the seven-year anniversary of Australia’s introduction of offshore processing of refugees. In a weird twist of fate, Kurdish-Iranian journalist – and former Manus Island detainee - Behrouz Boochani was granted permanent protection in New Zealand just a few days later.

Nearly 200 women from diverse backgrounds took the opportunity of SSI’s International Women’s Day (IWD) event, Empowering Women through Employment, to discuss the strengths of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women in the workplace.

Yasmin Farhart, an empowered, south west Sydney-based Lebanese woman living with disability, is a professional public speaker, educator, activist and advocate for diversity and inclusion. 

Since his diagnosis 35 years ago, inspirational speaker David Polson has participated in 28 drug trials to improve the treatment of the virus.