(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Forging a place in Australia is never an easy road for a refugee but two surveys of new arrivals have found they're enjoying their new lives.
A study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies has found the majority of refugees feel they've been welcomed by Australia, with more than 80 per cent of those surveyed saying their experience of settling into Australia had been good or very good.
And a survey by the settlement agency AMES shows refugees have generally positive attitudes towards life in Australia.
Greg Dyett reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
It's perhaps not surprising that refugees who have fled war and persecution would say that life in Australia is so much better but that's not necessarily so according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Researcher Diana Smart says she didn't know what she'd find when she set out to survey 2,400 refugees who have settled in Australia as humanitarian entrants.
"People have different expectations of what life might be like in Australia and also they have different experiences when they come here as well, so it could be that they find it hard to settle in and this makes them feel unhappy but we didn't find that. We weren't sure what we would find, in fact."
The Building a New Life in Australia study found the majority of refugees say they feel welcome in Australia.
Ibtasim Ahmed, from Somalia, says settling into Australia has provided her with a sense of security and stability.
"I had chance to organise my life a little bit better and have a little bit hope to have think about the future before it was just how to survive but now I can organise and think about my future. Right now I'm doing some volunteer work, we finished training at Cabrini Hospital and soon we're going to start in their education research centre."
Researcher Diana Smart says while the survey results are encouraging, she did find mental health problems affect 35 per cent of men and 46 per cent of women.
"More than half have experienced war. They've experienced other situations such as being kidnapped or imprisoned or violence, persecution. Some of them had experienced a natural disaster or extreme deprivation as well and more than half of them had experienced two or more of these types of events so we did expect to see higher than average mental health problems amongst this group but we would hope that over the years, and we are following them for five years we will see this diminish."
Ibtasim Ahmed says her mental health is generally good.
She says what does upset her is thinking about what life would be like back in Somalia.
"From Somalia it's only the idea of if I'm going to go back with my family where I'm from, that idea makes me scared, because I'm glad that they made that decision to go before it becomes worse for us."
Diana Smart says those surveyed will be interviewed every 12 months for the next five years.
"We're really wanting to see the circumstances and experiences that help people settle well and rebuild their lives successfully and also what are the circumstances or experiences that might make this harder for them. We are hoping that if we look at their social participation, their economic wellbeing and their personal wellbeing, their ability to be self-sufficient in Australia and their personal happiness that we'll be able to get a very good picture of what makes for an easy pathway or what makes one more challenging and we'll be able to feed this back to policy makers and service providers so that they can target their efforts more effectively."
The Australian Multicultural Education Services study also has a longer-term view.
AMES spoke to over 500 participants of its Adult Migrant Education Program, asking them about their perceptions of life in Australia before and after migration.
Researcher Lisa Thomson says they found people quite optimistic about their future in Australia.
"They felt that their standard of living would be better, that their family would have a better life, that they would feel safe and secure and they also liked that fact that Australia was, you know, seen as being an egalitarian community where people are treated equally and fairly. I suppose the other optimistic finding is that they felt that their children would have a better life than what they had when they were growing up and they felt that their life would be much improved, certainly within the next three to four years after coming to Australia."
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