Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia- CSRA

New program commencing July 2022

In December, the federal government announced two important new measures that herald a new era for community sponsorship of refugees in Australia. 

• New four-year ‘Community Refugee Integration and Support Pilot’ (CRISP): CRISP will enable Australian community groups to take primary responsibility for welcoming and settling 1,500 UNCHR-referred refugees over a four-year period, beginning in July 2022. Refugees involved in this program will be able to access Centrelink support and Medicare benefits on a par with other resettled refugees, with the role of community members likely to be focussed on providing welcome, practical support and some basic ‘on arrival’ needs like temporary housing, furniture and household goods and other material needs.  More information can be found in on the CRSA website here. 
• Current CSP program will become more affordable: From July 2022 the visa application charge associated with the current Community Support Program will be significantly reduced.  This will make it more affordable for Australians to sponsor the visa of a refugee who is already known to them (e.g. a family member or friend).  

While these programs won't expand the size of Australia's humanitarian migration quota in the short term, this remains an important goal to achieve in future years, building on these new foundations.

Thank you to the church groups and individual Australians across the country who rallied to help trail-blaze this new approach by signing up to be a part of the Group Mentorship Program for newly arrived refugees (most, but not all, being Afghan evacuees). Mentor groups are providing much needed welcome, orientation, friendship and practical support, supplementing the role of government-funded settlement services. 

Groups have hosted dozens of welcome picnics and other events in communities around Australia and provided families with donated laptops, phones, scooters, toys and household goods to help fill gaps.  

Mentor groups are helping evacuees inspect and secure suitable housing in a very challenging housing market (with some successfully negotiating significant discounts with landlords), sort out hiccups with the registration of families with Medicare and Centrelink, provide advice on employment and educational opportunities and advise on the steps that people need to take to have overseas qualifications recognised here.  

For more information about joining with the groups involved in a new era of refugee protection in Australia, contact Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia (CRSA). 

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NCCA-ACRT Letter to the Prime Minister

The NCCA-ACRT request commitment for Afghan refugees

Like us, you must be feeling desperate about the situation in Afghanistan.  We have heard reports from many of our Afghan people who have family in Afghanistan or worrying about the related issues they see as emerging in Pakistan

Therefore we are all praying for a generous response from Australia to the situation of the Afghan people, in-country and in Australia, at this time. 

As part of ACRT, The Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project (BASP) is writing letters as are Taskforce members separately and severally to their supporters with the asks below.

The NCCA-ACRT letter to the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison can be downloaded here -  pdf 210817 NCCA ACRT PM AFG (193 KB)

The NCCA-ACRT have also sent one to Minister Hawke and Trent Zimmerman MP for North Sydney, Dave Sharma MP for Wentworth.

We give what comfort we can to those who are so traumatised by what is happening and we extend our love and support to them. 

You can help too

Please consider writing to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Immigration, the Labor Leader (addresses below) and your own MP. 

You may include the three asks below from The Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project (BASP) 

Dear ..., 

We ask that Australia:

• Grant permanent protection or citizenship to all Afghan people seeking asylum and refugee status currently living in Australia or in immigration detention
• Declare an intake of 20000 Afghan refugees (matching the Canadian commitment announced last night)
• Assist Afghan Australians with urgent family reunion applications for relatives who are in imminent danger

Email addresses:

Prime Minister of Australia: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

The Minister for Home Affairs: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Leader of the Opposition: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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CONTACT US

Telephone: (02) 9299 2215

Address: Locked Bag Q199,

QVB NSW 1230

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ACRT Media Release

30 June 2021

7,000 are waiting in limbo, need safety 

Currently, there are over 7,000 refugees waiting offshore. These people have already been granted permanent humanitarian visas to enter Australia but are still waiting offshore after been denied entry when the borders closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Stuck in transit, many live without the right to work, study or travel freely. Families with sick children cannot access the healthcare they desperately need. Many have been stuck in this uncertainty for years, frightened and hoping for a better future.  

Little has been done by the government to change the barriers to entry for the vast majority of these 7000 people.  The Refugee Council of Australia (RCA) and UNHCR have called on the government to apply a blanket travel exemption for humanitarian visa holders, advocating for all of them to be allowed into Australia to start a new life – as they were promised.

Since August 2020, Australia has rejected 1,251 out of 1,826 applications for travel exemptions from refugees already granted protection by the government, according to Department of Home Affairs data obtained by SBS. 

Australia’s human rights record

The latest tracker by the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) showed no improvement in Australia’s human rights record in 2020, in particular relating to those most at risk of rights abuses. A HRMI spokesperson said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, people with disabilities, people with low socioeconomic status, and refugees and asylum seekers were shown to be at risk of violations of every right measured by the tracker. 

• ‘Thousands of vulnerable refugees granted protection in Australia remain stuck overseas’, SBS News, 22 June 2021 
• ‘Australia has delivered 'strikingly poor' results on a new human rights scorecard’, SBS News, 24 June 2021

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CONTACT US

Telephone: (02) 9299 2215

Address: Locked Bag Q199,

QVB NSW 1230

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ACRT Media Release

20 June 2021

Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce shares vision of new season of community support for refugees and asylum seekers

In a meeting at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday 17th June, a delegation from the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce (ACRT) met with the office of the Hon Alex Hawke MP Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs to share the churches’ vision for a new partnership and a new season.

At the simplest level, the ACRT is calling on the Australian Government to:

1. Conduct fair and timely assessment of claims for refugee status (putting resources into fair and timely assessment of claims and not into the exorbitant, unnecessary and harmful costs of detention).
2. Support people seeking asylum to live in the community with adequate income and access to health care during the assessment of their claims (if they are unable to find work to support themselves.)
3. Introduce community sponsorship of refugees as a new mechanism in Australia to provide safety and protection for those seeking refuge. 

Ms. Elizabeth Stone, General Secretary at the National Council of Churches in Australia explained that “Our churches, and other faith communities, are willing and able to be more involved in supporting refugees in our communities, and there is an existing groundswell of activity in many parts of Australia supporting people on temporary visas living and contributing to our communities. But we need government to make the changes to end detention and to support and encourage this community movement by giving permanent protection. It is good for Australia in so many ways.” 

Read the full Media Release:   pdf 20210620 NCCA ACRT Media Release Meeting with Minister Hawke office (176 KB)

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CONTACT US

Telephone: (02) 9299 2215

Address: Locked Bag Q199,

QVB NSW 1230

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The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed.

(Prov.11:25 The Message)