TRANSCRIPT
A former criminal lawyer in Venezuela, Juan Santamaria fled his home country fearing for his life and arrived in Australia in 2023.
He was part of the Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot, also known as CRISP, where he received support from local community groups with everything from registering for Medicare, to finding accommodation.
Mr Santamaria says the support from the community groups has been a great help.
"We were waiting for a long time and before I arrived here, and when we finally arrive here, for us was a great experience, because that means for us all a new beginning, after a hard time, difficult time for us. It was a great opportunity, and it's not too easy to move to another country in the other side of the world, but we are very grateful and decide to move forward."
Launched in mid 2022, the CRISP was initially a three-year initiative linking community groups to a refugee family nominated by the United Nations refugee agency, for 12 months support for their resettlement in Australia.
Through the CRISP program, Mr Santamaria was connected with a Jewish community group, and he became friends for life with Guy Abrahams, a member of the group.
And that's why Mr Santamaria welcomes the news that the federal government decides to make the CRISP program permanent, as part of its resettlement process for refugees.
"The CRISP support for the refugee people who is arriving is essential, because when you arrive here alone, you know, you coming to a new place, have this support from people who is willing to help, connect with their community, help with them connect with Australia service, and joining the English class, tell them how to use the public transport."
Federal assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Julian Hill says the CRISP has been found to be "cost effective" and productive.
"We have great feedback from communities across the country from the refugees whose life have been transformed by being welcomed to our country. And also I've sat down with volunteers from different states and territories to hear their experiences and just how rewarding it's been for them and their communities and families to be able to do this work to welcome people to our country."
The pilot of Community Refugee Sponsorship program was originally due to end in June 2025, but the federal government offered another $1 million funding to keep the program running till June 2026.
Mr Hill says that's now been extended further.
"Making the decision now to keep the program, make it permanent in Australia's overall humanitarian program allows the organisations and volunteers to continue to plan, to receive people and so on."
Lisa Button is the chief executive of Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia, which coordinates the program.
Now, with the CRISP becoming a permanent program, Ms Button hopes to expand its size to allow more people to benefit from it.
"So it is a modest program in size at the moment, but we have huge ambitions for this model going forward, now that we've proven that it can work, we can see Australians stepping up at much greater numbers in the future, when given the opportunity in the invitation to become involved. We often turn people away, who would like to be involved in supporting people in emerging crises, in Afghanistan evacuation in 2021, or Ukraine arrivals or Gaza arrivals, so we are going to be exploring in the years ahead how this model can help us in all sorts of situations as well as other areas endeavour."
