Celebrating World Refugee Week

 

We are celebrating Refugee Week and are proud to highlight the incredible work being undertaken by CatholicCare, in particular its Settle Well – Next Phase project which supports young people and women who have lived experience in seeking asylum to secure employment.

We provided CatholicCare with funding during our 2021-22 grant round to assist this project in getting off the ground, and we are pleased to share this story of impact as a result:

One of our recent interns has been a part of our Settle Well – Next Phase Job Readiness program for the last 2.5 years and during this time she has had to overcome a lot of barriers including studying online, placement in the health industry being disrupted due to covid and a period of hotel quarantine whilst continuing to applying for several dream jobs, but never getting the opportunity.

Throughout the last two years, this client did everything we asked, attended every workshop and continued to grow her skills through part time and full time retail positions, she completed her Certificate III studies and still couldn’t get her dream job.

With the help of an internship, she has recently landed that perfect job. An opportunity she never gave up on, but with support of a grant from the Geelong Community Foundation for an internship, this gave us an additional opportunity to advocate for her with a local health service provider. She has now been working for two months and she is so happy, she has her licence and is saving for her own car.

Job Readiness Worker Ar Ree Da NorWab, said “She has been very patient and never gave up, we are so proud of her, she is a role model for other young women in the community”.

Job Readiness Worker Sarah Cunningham, said “Our job readiness program is unique in the fact that we continue to work with the client, to achieve meaningful employment for them, in this situation our client was very determined to achieve her dream job in the health care industry and we never gave up supporting her.”

Geelong Community Foundation CEO Gail Rodgers, said that, from the Foundation’s perspective, the Settle Well – Next Phase program bridges a significant gap faced by refugee and asylum seek youth and their mothers.

“The experienced CatholicCare team have clearly identified the most beneficial elements that a settlement program needs to include for their clients to be connected and engaged within their new home. The successful results speak for themselves. We also commend the organisation for the employment of team members with lived experience and language skills that help enormously.”

(Please note this image is taken generally from the Settle Well – Next Phase program and does not include the intern mentioned in the above story).