Supporting Former Refugees – Our Synod Priority
Matt Crawshaw writes on our Diocese efforts to support former refugees.
About 10 years ago, our Anglican Movement played an active role in the “Double the Refugee Quota” campaign. In 2020, the refugee quota for Aotearoa was raised to 1500 per year (only to have the intakes for those years thwarted by Covid-19). Still, we have one of the lowest per capita quotas in the world. When we consider that there are over a hundred million forcibly displaced people worldwide – our meagre 300 refugees per 1 million of population seems extremely stingy!
The global refugee crisis was barely on the political radar in the recent election campaign. Only two parties even reference refugees in their policy platform.
In Synod 2022 we set the refugee situation as one of our three justice priorities for the year. Even if the media, political parties, and the public at large seem to have ignored the plight of refugees – it’s so important that we do not. As a church, we continue to pray, to vote, to act in support of this incredibly important justice issue of our time. We remember together the crisis is made up of precious people - mums, dads, children, young adults, grandparents who deserve the same dignity and love and care that we would want for our family if they were ever forcibly displaced.
I’m proud that we as a church have been actively remembering that the plight of refugees matters. For many years we’ve organised parish teams led by Patricia Cooper and now Phil McCarthy to collect donated new and quality used household items, and then set up the homes ready to welcome new families. This year alone we’ve set up about 30 homes.
Other examples of how we engage that I’m aware of are:
St David’s Naenae recently rented their vicarage to a former refugee family.
Victoria University Chaplaincy has given employment to a former refugee.
Two communities that are part of our Diocese have signed up to sponsor non-quota refugee families through the Community Refugee Sponsorship scheme.
Personally, this year, with my Urban Vision community in Porirua, we’ve had the deep privilege of traveling closely with a former refugee family from Somalia, who we were able to rent to by offering our rental to Immigration NZ to place a family. We’ve encountered such richness in this relationship. They are so dear to us we now see them as family. Every week we are amazed by their incredible resilience, and we experience such joy in the inter-cultural diversity and laughter and fun as we share meals and conversations and outings to new places.
I would encourage you to also encounter some of this joy and beauty by actively finding opportunities to be in relationship with former refugees. You could:
look out for and take opportunities to talk to former refugees (so often they feel isolated and ignored by neighbours and members of their community)
train as an in-home ESOL tutor
take a former refugee on driving lessons to give them driving practise
become a Red Cross refugee support volunteer.
