Donate to us Contact Us Find support and services
How we work Community Advocacy Reports and resources
Our Why Our Team
Community News Press Release
To actively enable and support the full integration and participation of migrants and resettled families communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand
 

How we work

 
 

We work to improve inclusion, belonging and well-being for refugee-background and migrant communities by disrupting and challenging the systems that make it hard to settle in Aotearoa.

 

We do this by:

  • Understanding the key issues for migrants and refugee background communities.

  • Empowering communities to become their own advocates.

  • Influencing attitudes and advocating for improvements to policies and practices that affect newcomer communities.

  • Collaborating and partnering with like-minded organisations to ensure the voices of our communities can be heard.

Our strategic priorities are:

  • Lifting household income – working with families, communities, employers, and government to raise household income for refugee-background and migrant families.

  • Inclusion, social connection, and wellbeing for women – supporting refugee-background and migrant women to access opportunities for connection and communities of support.

  • Changing attitudes towards migrant and former-refugee communities through positive narratives and storytelling.

 
 

What is systems change?

 
 

Systems change is an approach that focuses on addressing the causes, rather than the symptoms, of a societal issue.

 

We know that former refugees and migrants to Aotearoa experience social exclusion and isolation, exclusion from adequate income, a lack of access to current and future opportunities, and poor mental health and wellbeing outcomes.

These issues are driven by societal and institutional racism and discrimination, ineffective policies and service design, an imbalance of decision-making power, and inadequate recognition of the skills and experience they bring.

For us, taking a systems change approach meant taking a strategic step away from service delivery to focus on addressing the root causes of these persistent challenges.

We work to disrupt the systems and conditions that create inequity and exclusion for refugee-background and migrant communities, and transform the experiences for these communities, supporting them towards greater inclusion, belonging, connection and well-being.

 

This can look like:

  • Influencing policy – we use research and insights gathered from our communities to advocate for change, make submissions and engage with decision-makers to influence policy development.

  • Coalition building – we build networks, provide backbone support for communities, and collaborate with others across our sector to grow our collective capacity to influence.

  • Changing the narrative – we foster more inclusive attitudes and behaviours in Aotearoa by sharing positive narratives and supporting community storytelling to disrupt commonly-held beliefs about migrants and former refugees.

  • Developing lived expertise capacity – we work to ensure that migrants and former refugees are visible as leaders, champions and advocates by training and supporting them to grow lived expertise, leadership capability and community voice.

  • Innovation – we develop and test new ways of working with greater efficacy for enabling migrant and former refugee wellbeing.

 
 
 
Belong+Symbols+3.png