Catholic social outreach

 Supporting refugees and their families A joint working relationship between Catholic Social Services, the Refugee Family Reunification Trust and the Salvation Army Central Division was formed in September 2014 to…

 Supporting refugees and their families

A joint working relationship between Catholic Social Services, the Refugee Family Reunification Trust and the Salvation Army Central Division was formed in September 2014 to support refugees in Wellington. The new relationship draws on the strengths of each agency, aiming to provide better support to people from refugee backgrounds who have been assisted by the Trust.

CSS will provide social work and counselling support to the families when they arrive. Families may need help in securing long-term accommodation, accessing benefits from Work and Income, or help with getting their children settled into a local school. Salvation Army will meet the new arrivals’ food, furniture and clothing needs for the first three or four weeks. The Refugee Family Reunification Trust will continue to provide financial assistance to bring refugees’ immediate family members to join them in Wellington.

Family reunification is the major concern for former refugees living in New Zealand, and is a foremost part of successful refugee resettlement. Refugees’ pre-occupation with re-unification can be a barrier to successfully resettlement.

Refugees who come through the Refugee-Family-Support category or as sponsored partners, parents or children, are classified as migrants. They do not receive the same support that ‘quota’ refugees do. Quota refers to the limited number of officially allowed refugees who are outside their home country because they have suffered or feared persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion, or because they are fleeing a war.

This places a huge burden on the refugee sponsor who is already struggling, and also hinders their ability to resettle and to contribute to New Zealand society. It can take many years for the sponsor to get their application accepted and processed by Immigration New Zealand. There is a high financial cost to lodging the application and paying the airfares once the visas are approved and issued. The sponsor has to be able to prove once the family members arrive they can provide appropriate accommodation and, in some cases, guaranteed employment for the adult family members.

In 2014 the Refugee Family Reunification Trust assisted families originally from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq, and Uganda. Many had been living in refugee camps before coming to New Zealand.

CSS is working with some of those families and we will continue to work alongside the Salvation Army and the Refugee Family Reunification Trust to better support refugees and their families in Wellington.