Integrating new arrivals into Australian communities remains a significant challenge for agencies across the country.
One such body is testing a range of different programs and activities with a view to making the transition as efficient as possible.
When Congolese asylum seeker Solange Vumiliya arrived in Australia, even the provincial city of Geelong was daunting.
"I scared because I can't see someone who know me and I saw many buildings many cars many people," she said.
Ms Vumiliya is one of dozens of new arrivals who regularly attends a small but productive garden plot offered by Diversitat, a Geelong-based organisation helping resettle migrants with through training, education and social services.
The garden enables people from a range of ethnicities to be active and engaged and in some circumstances, produce vegetables unique to their homeland.
Polly Musgrove who runs the "Hope Garden" says gardening offers far more than the fruits of the labour.
"They've actually felt the soil they've put the seed in and they've actually watched it grow out of that soil - watered it nurtured it - I really believe there's a parallel between that and a sense of connection - it is literally putting your roots down."
Diversitat CEO Michael Martinez says the diverse range of social and educational programs offered at the centre has attracted attention from regional employers looking to expand and access a new workforce.
"We've got employers there that are very keen to look at the things that we've done here with some refugee communities that have managed to fill the skill gaps."
On the surface, the simple act of growing vegies is simple, but for one Afghan refugee SBS spoke to it's actually symbolic and profound. In her homeland she was rarely allowed outside the home, let alone to tend a garden.
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