Inside the trial scheme to welcome more refugees to New Zealand

CORS was initially supposed to approve 150 refugees, but only 44 have been approved so far. (Photo: Getty)

The CORS programme makes communities, rather than government, responsible for supporting refugees. It’s a promising alternative, but will it be continued?

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When Aisha* arrived in New Zealand, she felt overwhelmed. It was a lot colder than where she had been living in Indonesia. Her family were suddenly very far away. Overnight, she went from life in limbo to having to think about study or finding a job. 

“I didn’t want to be a refugee any more,” she says. “I wanted a normal life, to be someone who could help my family one day.” One week, she was leading her regular life as a refugee in Indonesia; the next, she was living in a part of New Zealand that had never hosted refugees before, confronting the head-spinning newness of attending Ministry of Social Development (MSD) appointments, finding housing, opening a bank account and wondering what she could do for work. 

Aisha is one of 34 refugees who have arrived in New Zealand through Community Refugee Sponsorship (CORS), a pilot programme that is currently due to end in June. Based on overseas programmes – including one in Canada active since the 1970s that has settled more than 300,000 refugees through private sponsorship and hybrid government-private models – it’s an alternative to the standard refugee pathway, which has funding to accept 1,500 refugees each year. Australia is currently running a similar pilot to settle 1,500 refugees over four years, part of its refugee quota of 20,000 places per year. 

CORS means that refugees can settle in places like Whangārei, which hasn’t been involved in refugee settlement before (Photo: Getty Images)

Instead of the government providing housing support, an orientation programme at the Māngere Refugee Centre and support with housing, the community refugee programme consists of groups that commit to providing housing support, assistance in navigating education and healthcare, and help to find jobs and integrate new arrivals into the community. Groups can be based anywhere in the country (quota refugees are only settled in some locations), as long as they have enough money to help with new arrivals and experience working with refugees or other vulnerable people. Communities commit to supporting the refugees for two years.

“It’s a complementary pathway to the quota system,” says Birgit Grafarend-Watungwa, the programme manager for HOST International, an organisation contracted by the government to support potential sponsors. HOST helps potential sponsors navigate the bureaucracy of applications, as well as consider cultural safety, connect to relevant local groups and provide logistical advice. 

Community applicants, which are required to be legal entities, applied when the pilot began in 2021. Groups consist of at least five people who can commit to providing support. “I was so blown away by the interest – we have a waitlist of groups who would like to be involved but couldn’t be this time,” Grafarend-Watungwa says.

Afghan refugees at a settlement in Indonesia, where many refugees wait in limbo (Photo: Ed Wray/Getty Images)

Inside the trial scheme to welcome more refugees to New Zealand | The Spinoff

By Shanti Mathias, Staff Writer

Read the full article here: Inside the trial scheme to welcome more refugees to New Zealand | The Spinoff 

*Aisha requested a pseudonym to protect her personal details and those of her family.