Arrivals, arrivals and more arrivals!
Majit and Ayad are welcomed at Perth Airport at 2am by Sophia, from the Curtin Student Welcome Group.
This month Skill Path is welcoming refugee students to Australia every week. It’s been a long road to get here, but the rush of airport arrivals makes it all worth it.
I’m writing this update from the air as I fly from Melbourne to Perth. I am here to greet our first two refugee students arriving in Western Australia - Majid and Ayat – as they step off the plane!
Plane travel is not an event for me – I’ve been lucky to visit countries around the world thanks to the privilege of my Australian passport. So it’s not lost on me that for Majid, Ayat and most of the students coming to Australia through the Refugee Student Settlement Pathway (RSSP), this is their first time ever boarding a flight.
It’s also the first time in their lives they will have freedom of movement and a pathway to citizenship in a country where they can be safe and truly belong. Thanks to Curtin University and all the other universities participating in the Refugee Student Settlement Pathway for making this new reality possible.
From camps to campuses
We ended last year supporting Elma and Dar Dar to take epic journeys from their respective refugee camps in Northern Thailand to Australia, thanks to the assistance of the Australian High Commission in Thailand and the International Organisation for Migration.
Elma is now based in Brisbane, where she will be studying Masters of Business at the University of Queensland.
This year Dar Dar is studying at Trinity College at The University of Melbourne on a full fee scholarship. A year ago, she had given up on ever being able to study at university. She was jolted out of this resignation by her wonderful mum, who saw a post about the RSSP and encouraged and supported her to apply.
No wonder UNHCR has highlighted Dar Dar as an inspiration for other refugee students living in northern Thailand not to give up.
Dar Dar and Elma enjoy a brief stopover at Sydney Airport before flying on to their new homes in Melbourne and Brisbane.
Biggest airport arrival yet, and a new beginning in Geelong
Last week we had a welcome party at Melbourne Airport with staff and students from Deakin University and the University of Melbourne greeting five RSSP students who arrived direct from Malaysia.
Deakin is hosting four students at the Geelong Waurn Ponds campus who will be studying engineering, health sciences/nursing and biomedicine.
Thanks to a partnership with Bennelong Foundation supporting students to help fill healthcare workforce gaps, Deakin has been able to offer the students a package of fantastic support as they settle into their new coastal home. We are incredibly grateful to Bennelong Foundation for their vision and for backing this initiative.
I have been glued to the Instagram account of Umar, a Rohingya refugee who will soon commence a Bachelor of Engineering at Deakin. He has been posting daily about life in Deakin Residential, and I am absolutely loving seeing life in Geelong through his eyes (also some great student-life recipes on display!)
RSSP students welcomed to Melbourne this week by Skill Path andstudents and staff from Deakin University and The University of Melbourne.
RSSP students enjoying their first night in Geelong with the Deakin University Student Welcome Group.
More planes landing
This week we are criss-crossing the country to welcome students to Perth (Curtin University), Melbourne (University of Melbourne) and Sydney (University of Technology Sydney and University of Sydney), before closing out the month welcoming students to Canberra (Australian National University), Sydney (Western Sydney University) and Brisbane (University of Queensland).
If it sounds like a lot of welcome planning, it is! But we are so lucky to have an active network of Student Welcome Groups across the country, trained with the support of Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia.
Thank you to the participating universities for believing in this exciting program and making a dream reality for bright young refugee students. We are excited to start recruiting the next cohort of students to come!
