Twentieth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

Successive Australian governments have turned to rural areas to welcome refugees. Indeed, the 2019 national review of refugee settlement outcomes recommended 50% humanitarian entrants be placed in rural localities by 2022. Armidale is Australia’s newest rural refugee resettlement location. Since 2018, Armidale received 600 Ezidi refugees. SSI provides settlement services under the federal Humanitarian Settlement Program. In tandem, SSI delivers community engagement, instrumental to integration and community cohesion. This study addresses local responses to refugee resettlement. Successful integration involves mutual adaptation and shared responsibility by everyone, including newcomers, host communities and governments. In recognition, SSI adopted a whole-of-community approach to rural resettlement. ‘All In For Armidale’ captures the whole-of-community approach to rural refugee resettlement. It overlays local case-studies with the strategic pillars of community engagement practice, relaying important aspirations the Ezidi hold for their future in Armidale. Joint research by SSI and University New England empirically gauged community responses to refugees arriving in Armidale at regular intervals, assessing Armidale’s attitudes, concerns, responses throughout the first 18 months of settlement. Findings revealed increasingly positive attitudes across clusters of the local community. Over time, community members reported more positive contact with refugees, increased willingness to help refugees, and perceived the community to be more positive toward refugees coming to Armidale. This was tempered by a minority of people who expressed concerns, however this decreased across the surveys.