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Welcome, strangers!

19/8/2022

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By Harry Freeman

WHAT would a family need to start a new life in a distant country?  Somewhere to live?  Learn a new language?  Find a way to earn an income?  And a school for their kids?  The list goes on – and on.

A report in the last edition of the Post (Warm welcome awaits refugee family) told of how a Syrian refugee family will very soon be arriving in our community with all these needs and more.  They will arrive as part of a new approach to settling refugees on Humanitarian visas. It is known as the Community Refugee Initiative Support Program (CRISP), and relies largely on specially trained community groups to support the refugees for their first 12 months in Australia. ​
Our own Bass Coast Refugee Sponsorship Group is such a group, having been preparing to welcome and support the family for over a year.

Our group has raised funds and collected donations of furniture and household goods; secured rental accommodation and researched other needs, to assist the family in settling into their new life. And in a few days’ time their journey and ours will start together in earnest as the family has been given its clearance to join us from their present location in northern Iraq.

The family of Mum, Dad and four children aged three to eight (no doubt exhausted after spending the best part of two days on the trip) will be met by members of the group at the airport (with warm clothes and warm hearts) and brought to their new home in Wonthaggi.

We envisage that the first few weeks will be a time of gradually settling in to their very different surroundings. A time to start on introductory English language lessons before joining the more established classes at the Bass Coast Adult Learning Centre (BCAL). A time to find a school for the older children and organise their lives on a day-to-day basis in their new home.

And the interest does not stop there. Because this is a new scheme for Australia, our group and the family we are supporting have been chosen to be the subjects of a documentary film which will be used to encourage other groups to join the CRISP pilot. The film-makers have already undertaken background interviews and they will be on hand to record (discreetly) the arrival of the family at the airport and their subsequent steps in the journey.

Our group is very excited, as is the family.  There are many tasks to undertake and challenges to meet as we assist them to feel welcome and in control of their lives.  We look forward to introducing members of our community who would like to offer social and/or material assistance as the family settles in.  

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