Recent media reports have highlighted migrants, refugees and people seeking asylum as highly vulnerable at work. Accounts of low-paid work, unpaid wages, unsafe work conditions, exploitation and abuse are not uncommon. 

As with many new mothers in Australia, former refugee Aminata Conteh-Biger knew nothing about infant mortality rates before giving birth to her first child in 2012.

Deng Thiak Adut is a notable community leader and internationally renowned lawyer. He came to Australia as a refugee, after escaping Sudan where he was abducted as a child and forced to act as a soldier. Once he was safe, he put himself through law school, becoming a formidable advocate. 

From the arts to technology, there are many different fields where refugees have made significant contributions to Australian society. But what are the factors that drive their success? And why is telling and listening to their stories so important? 

Radical appeal: Young people and religious extremism Recent events have thrown a spotlight on religious extremism and its enactment through violent acts. Government, media and the public have shown concern at the vulnerability of young Muslims towards the influence of extremist ideology. This Speakers’ Series explores why young people in contemporary Australia might be attracted to an extreme religious ideology.

Settlement Services International’s (SSI) third Speakers’ Series event for 2014 will explore the theme: Perception is reality: How do we form our perceptions of refugees and asylum seekers? The live panel discussion will approach the complex question from different angles following a presentation by Professor Andrew Markus, who heads the Scanlon Foundation’s Mapping Social Cohesion research program based at Monash University. The 2014 Mapping Social Cohesion report suggested that the majority of Australians support a humanitarian settlement program, which assesses refugees overseas but are negative towards asylum seekers arriving by boat. The predominant view is that asylum seekers are illegal economic migrants. Claims of persecution are often ignored as a push factor. These views have increased since 2011. 

People born in a non-English speaking country have similar rates of disability as other Australians but are about half as likely to receive formal assistance.

Refugee Week is Australia’s peak annual activity to raise awareness about the issues affecting refugees and celebrate the positive contributions made by refugees to Australian society.

Affordable housing - why is it so hard to find and how do we work together to fill the gap? 

The argument that Australia’s leadership is mono-cultural because leaders are hired based on merit can no longer be used as a shield to exclude people from culturally diverse backgrounds, a panel of diversity specialists told the SSI Speakers’ Series.

With more than one in four Australians now born overseas, there is an urgent need for greater cultural diversity among the ranks of our country’s business leaders. A new report from the Australian Human Rights Commission, however, has shown that fewer than five per cent of ASX 200 company CEOs come from non-European or Anglo-Celtic backgrounds.

SSI’s first Speakers’ Series for 2016 was a powerful and inspiring evening, shared by 85 guests packed into SSI’s Ashfield auditorium and watched online at SSI’s YouTube channel.

Hana Sadiq has worked at Miller Intensive Language Centre in Liverpool for more than 10 years, and is now working as the School Support Liaison Officer. She is responsible for supporting students who are having problems, and families experiencing difficulties with language and settlement.

Migrants from Western Europe who arrived in the "50s and "60s in Australia were seen with hostility and suspicion by many in the local community. These are now well-settled communities but as new comers, they struggled to fit in. 

As mass atrocities displace millions of civilians around the world - many of them arriving as refugees in Australia - bringing justice to victims is of paramount importance. At this event, hear keynote presentations by Stephen J Rapp, US Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues, and Phil Glendenning, President of the Refugee Council of Australia and Director of the Edmund Rice Centre. 

A panel of informed speakers has called on authorities to support community groups and to back more academic research in an effort to counter religious extremism in Australia. The current issue of the susceptibility of young people to extremist ideologies was discussed at the SSI Speakers’ Series Radical appeal: young people and religious extremism on March 16.

Sarah Yahya, 19, was born hearing impaired in Iraq in 1995, to a Mandaean family that lived in fear for their safety. The Mandaean ethnic-religious group has been increasingly persecuted since not long after Sarah arrived in the world. In the cover of night, aged six, Sarah, her sister and mother, were whisked from their home and driven 12 hours in to Jordan. Once there, they went immediately to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to seek protection. Their father had been arrested and was in prison, serving four years for his beliefs.

The lives and settlement experiences of young refugees will be explored at the fourth and final Speakers’ Series event for 2014 hosted by Settlement Services International (SSI). Titled The strength of youth: young people and their refugee experiences, the event on Tuesday, November 11, will begin with three young people from refugee backgrounds sharing their stories.