Page 1678 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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importance of providing opportunities for young Canberrans to reach their potential. The Multicultural Youth Service is a great example of a service that is providing much-needed support for young refugees and asylum seekers in the Canberra community.
In the ACT, young people make up a large proportion of the multicultural community. In the last 10 years, there has been a marked increase in the proportion of young people under the age of 30 arriving through Australia’s humanitarian program. In fact, 75 per cent of refugee arrivals in the ACT since 2001 have been youth. Many new arrivals have been exposed to extreme poverty, conflict and violence in refugee camps or in transit in other countries. These unpredictable and sometimes volatile circumstances often leave severe and detrimental psychological effects on many people. As a result, refugees and newly arrived young people are particularly affected by settlement issues.
The Youth Coalition of the ACT notes that many young new arrivals experience significant effects on their psychological wellbeing, family relationships and adapting to a new environment. These experiences are further complicated by the fact that they may also experience similar issues to other young people such as housing and homelessness, health, education and employment, lack of recreational opportunities and family and peer relationships. In addition to these pressures, homelessness for refugee youth is particularly high as a result of the high levels of family conflict.
Research shows that culturally and linguistically diverse youth are up to 10 times more likely to become homeless than an Australian-born youth. In particular, young female refugees in the ACT are becoming increasingly at risk and facing homelessness, living in refuges, having unwanted pregnancies, experiencing high levels of family conflict and dropping out of school, all of which have negative impacts on their mental health.
Young women also find cultural transition particularly difficult. This has contributed to high levels of school dropout, truancy, social isolation, family conflict, relationship issues and unplanned pregnancies. And while this research is compelling, there remain limited multicultural settlement services in the ACT. This was noted in the 2006 to 2009 multicultural draft strategy and still remains an issue today. While the ACT government has stated its commitment to all migrants, there remains a notable gap in targeted essential services for CALD youth.
The Multicultural Youth Service is an organisation that has been actively supporting a range of multicultural youth groups, ranging from Burmese to their largest consumers, Sudanese youth. In the last eight years, it has provided support, outreach, drop-in facilities and community development activities to migrant and refugee young people. MYS has over 2,000 client contacts per month and deals with up to 40 youth per day.
They deal with complex cases such as severe mental health issues, including cases of those affected by suicide, and provide a safe space for young people to come together, play pool and use the internet. They have been active in many forums and have advised the government on gender and drug and alcohol issues that affect
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