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Pilot Project for Refugee employment takes off

A pilot scheme to assist refugees find useful employment and settle faster and better has been launched in Wellington.

The Refugee Service National Office is leading the 12-month pilot programme with funding from Work and Income.

Judi McCallum, an ESOL Assessment and Access Service Specialist Advisor at Multicultural Learning, Support Services (MCLaSS), has taken leave to manage the Programme.

The Project became a reality after a number of organisations including MCLaSS, ‘Changemakers Refugee Forum,’ ‘Refugee Services Aotearoa’ and ‘Refugees as Survivors’ determined the need for such assistance.

The Project will focus on helping clients stay on track to achieve a long-term plan through a series of short-term goals, with regular reviews of progress and reassessments of the plan.

Volunteers and mentors, who are former refugees, now successfully employed, will assist assessors and advisors in assisting new clients achieve their objectives. In most cases, such mentors would be from the same ethnic communities as jobseekers.

Another key focus of the programme is to support the collaborative activities of other education and employment services working with refugee-background people. The purpose is to maximise the ways in which the work of each organisation can add value to the total advice and support provided to clients.

The MCLaSS service will continue to work with migrants and with those former refugees for whom the more intensive approach of the new programme is not necessary.
Pat Hay, who provides this service in the Hutt, Ms McCallum, Shelley Abu-Shanab and Brenda Morrison (of MCLaSS) will confer regularly to ensure that former refugees receive help from the service that is most appropriate for their needs.

Refugee Services Aotearoa and MCLaSS also have a shared interest in developing employers’ awareness of the rewards of employing former refugees.

Edited from MCLaSS Newsletter

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