Three AMES Australia staff represented the organisation at the recent United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) annual consultations.
AMES Manager International and Community Development Dr Melika Sheikh-Eldin, Jalal Ahmadzai, from the communications team based in Melbourne and Olivia Toma, from Employment based in Melbourne, attended the conference.
The Consultations on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways (CRCP), formerly known as the Annual Tripartite Consultations on Resettlement (ATCR), is the most important multilateral forum for UNHCR, nations, NGOs, private sector representatives, academics and refugees to come together to discuss and advance resettlement policy.
AMES has been represented and has actively participated in the consultations over the past 15 years.
Melika said the main focus of AMES’ international work has been to share our experience in settlement and to learn from other international service providers.
“Another focus has been to enhance refugee self-representational and advocacy skills and to build the AMES Australia refugee voice at global refugee forums, NGO and/or ATCR consultations,” Melika said.
To build on and strengthen our previous engagement and to address some of the challenges of resettlement, AMES Australia established an internal process for inviting applications from its refugee background staff to be sponsored to attend those forums.
Through this process AMES will continue its international engagement with the UNHCR, build staff capacity and ensure the voices of refugees are represented.
Also, through this process, staff members from refugee backgrounds have been selected, trained and mentored to participate in state, national and international forums.
“One of the key learning points from the conference for me was the level of support and work done in the resettlement space in Latin America. An interesting session for me was the “Pre-departure prep: Making the most of waiting”, where I spoke about AMES Australia’s pre-arrival podcasts, our efforts towards improving accessibility on digital materials, the orientation guide roles at AMES Australia aimed at supporting new arrivals as well as our large pool of volunteers who assist in settlement and education.” Jalal said.
“The conference was a wonderful opportunity for me to meet incredible and talented people from around the world. I had a chance to speak closely to members of the Australian delegation from Refugee Council of Australia, the Australian Red Cross, SCOA, Foundation House etc. I managed to speak to some enthusiastic young representatives from the Canadian delegation who do great work in this space in Canada.” Jalal said.