Established migrants mentor newly arrived refugees

Newly arrived refugees are being paired with older and more experienced migrant volunteers to help them adjust to life in Australian in a new project that on Friday was awarded a $60,000 grant.

In 2000, Anna Dimo had just fled her war-torn home as a single mother with eight children.

Settling into a new life in Australia proved to be a whole new challenge, she said.

Now, Ms Dimo is a leader of the South Sudanese Community in Sydney, and will mentor other migrants from her country with the Ethnic Communities Council’s Good Neighbour Project.

The project was given a kickstart on Friday with a $60,000 grant from the NSW government.

It aims to get migrant communities who have already adjusted to the country to support the settlement of newly arrived refugees and migrants into Australian community life.

"I have been a principal of a school back home and here I was learning ABCs in Australia. It was very hard for me to learn the streets and how to use Centrelink and find housing,” Ms Dimo said.

Her experience is one shared by thousands and which inspired the Good Neighbour Project.

Nicole Yade created the project in her role at the Ethical Communities Council of Australia.

She said the $60,000 will go a long way to support the program.

"This grant will help us pay for interpreters when they're needed and that will really assist with the volunteers."

Sixty volunteers have been trained and another 30 more are set to be trained.

Each is well aware of the difficulty of a new start, especially those such as Dr Ramzi Barnouti, who arrived in Australia as an Iraqi refugee in 2005.

He said he had to navigate a new language as well as a new culture.

"They need to work somehow or to have somebody there to take care of them.  Everybody that comes here, the hardest thing was the first 100 days, then the first six months,” he said. 

“And then when it goes one year, they are beginning to settle.  But for each family to settle they need five years."

The Good Neighbour Project is currently only operating across Sydney, but those behind it have ambitious plans.

But Mary Karras, chief executive of the Ethical Communities Council of New South Wales, has ambitious plans.

"The Good Neighbour project is an opportunity that we're hoping will go nationwide,” Ms Karras said.

“Because it provides the opportunity for our communities to be able to contribute in particular some of our elders in the community who really want to give back to the communities and who want to be able to volunteer with all the refugees and with a number of migrants that are settling and asylum seekers that are settling in New South Wales and across Australia."