Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Before I came to Australia, I'd been in Malaysia for three years, and then I come to
Wagga and now I've been in Wagga for nearly 13 months.
I got help from the multicultural council.
My case worker is Kristy.
She's very good and she has been helping me a lot.
She helped me to find a house, to move, and then she helped me a lot.
My English is not very good, so sometimes, if I don't understand a letter from the
Centrelink, or a letter from the school, I ask her.
The HSS program is basically in terms of our organisation, we have case workers who
provide initial intensive settlement services to new arrivals in Wagga.
They work pretty closely with them for the first six months of their arrival - from
greeting them off the plane to Wagga, and then showing them the ropes like taking them to
the bank, setting up Medicare, getting them sorted.
As soon as the family arrive, we basically meet them at the airport, set them straight
into a house that we've secured before they arrive as well, and then within two days we
basically set them up with bank accounts, Medicare cards, and start the process, trying
to establish a life in the first six months that they're in Australia.
At the moment we've got quite a few Burmese families living in Tolland so we try and find
accommodation close by to there so we can set up a bit of a community and have some links
for the family.
We treat people as you see them when they arrive and sometimes you forget the enormity
for what they've been through in their home country and it's not until you really start
to build a relationship with the family and they share their story and their journey,
that you realise what an integral part you are in their life as a whole.