Unemployed asylum seekers awaiting decisions on their visas are giving back to Australia through volunteer work programs.
Some of the newly-arrived are fixing bikes for kids in a Cape York Aboriginal community to get job ready.
Halika, not her real name, has never had a paying job.
Unlike in Australia, it's not unusual for a Muslim woman from the repressed Rohingya people in Myanmar.
"It's good [in Australia] and if I want to find a job, I can get a job,” she said.
“If I know something, if I'm smart, I can do very well.
"When I started at this bike activity, I'm interested; I want to do the bikes job, because I like that, mechanic for bike.”
SBS is not identifying this asylum-seeker because it may affect the protection visa application or, she said, endanger her family back home.
"In Burma it is very difficult, [it's a] very hard life,” she said.
“It's very dangerous and people are not safe in Burma. That's why we are having to leave."
Just arrived from the Christmas Island detention centre two months ago, Halika is awaiting the Immigration Department's decision on whether she will stay or be deported.
She and other asylum seekers have limited work rights, limited Australian workplace skills and live off less than the dole.
Unemployed asylum-seekers awaiting decisions on their visas are giving back to Australia through volunteer work programs. (Stefan Armbruster/SBS) Source: Stefan Armbruster
Thirteen volunteered to learn how to fix bikes at a Brisbane community centre and get themselves job ready.
"For many people English is a second language, or a third or fourth, so they get to practice their English and contribute to a worthwhile cause,” said Nundah Activity Centre manager Don Rudd.
"It's an eye-opener for us all.
“When I speak to the refugees and understand the situation, it really does reinforce for me the difficulties they've faced and the opportunities that we as a community can give them and are delighted to give them."
About 270 bikes have been restored in Brisbane and will be shipped to the Aboriginal community of Pormpuraaw in Cape York, far-north Queensland.
The project is being co-ordinated by charity Bikes-4-Life, which also sends them to Uganda, Cambodia and East Timor.
"We restore them and send them to communities around the world that are under-resourced, people that don't have access to transport, so we offer them sustainable transport and donate bikes for them to use in the community,” said Bikes4Life founder Ebony Butler.
In those countries a bike is an economic tool but they have a different purpose in Australia.
"What we're doing in Indigenous communities is providing bikes to give kids as an incentive to go to school, to promote healthy lifestyles,” said Ms Butler.
Pormpuraaw is a small, remote community of about 300 people, meaning there will be almost one bike for everyone.
And for asylum seekers like Halika, there is another benefit - a psychological boost as they wait to hear if they will have a new life in Australia.
"I like helping other people,” she said.
“If I help other people, they will help me. If I respect them, then they will respect me.”
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