I attended a fundraising movie for the ChangeMakers Refugee Forum at the Paramount Theatre last night. It was a great success with over $6,000 raised for ChangeMakers. Congratulations to them, and to the Rotary Club of Courtenay Place who helped organise the night.

ChangeMakers is a unique organisation globally, in that it is an advocacy organisation for refugees developed by refugees.  Its public face is Adam Awad who won the Community Service Award at the Wellingtonian of the Year Awards last year for his work with ChangeMakers and other organisations.

ChangeMakers is forging an excellent reputation for not only working with refugee communities, but also in terms of developing resources for the wider community, including local and central government on how to work with refugees. 

World Refugee Day is coming up on the 20th of June and it is a good time to reflect on the experiences of people who are forced from their homeland, unsure of where they may end up.  In the early 1980s my family was part of helping a Polish family resettle in New Zealand.  It was initially quite a difficult transition, but the family found their niche, and had skills that were needed in New Zealand.  The children have gone on to great succes, including one who has become a doctor.

The experience and background of refugees are of course unique.  However the issues facing someone who has been forced to leave their home, often in horrific circumstances creates a number of issues that affect resettlement and participation in their new homeland. We can all do our bit to support new New Zealanders to live their lives happily and productively.  The leaflet released by Caritas last week gives some interesting perspectives on this process.

New Zealand plays its part in terms of taking a quota of 750 refugees, and we have developed our family reunification policies to allow more family members to join refugees.  We have also stepped up when it was really needed, such as in the case of the Tampa families.  We should proud of this record, but we also should not be complacent about the needs of the millions of people worldwide who need help.  I hope in the near future we will look again at whether we can increase our commitment to offering a fresh start to some of the most vulnerable people in the world.