Rebuilding Dreams: Refugees and the Quest for Meaningful Work
For the newcomers, this is also true – that road to a new country is the bumpiest, most insecure and challenging of lives. Fleeing homes, jobs and communities under enormous duress, refugees arriving in Australia seeking safety or to live again will contemplate how to make the impossible possible, a ‘new life’. Fresh in the spirit of positivity that characterises one of the most disadvantaged groups in the community, the first order of business is finding work. Finding meaningful employment for a refugee is therefore step number one – work is not just work for the sake of it. It provides those tremendously brave men and women something to look forward to in starting life again, as well as restore a sense of purpose, dignity and identity. A job for a refugee is most importantly to rebuild dreams.
The Importance of Meaningful Work for Refugees
Secondly, work that is meaningful, providing more than wages for the hours expended at workday and payday, also leads people to feel they contribute, are meaningfully part of something, with a future to look ahead to. The refugees most likely to benefit from meaningful work – that is, work tied to skills and interests – are also the ones most severely hit by the trauma of displacement, and therefore most in need of avenues to their own resilience and recovery: reclaiming self-agency over one’s life and future, reWE, somatic sensations, and finally hope. managing to gain ownership over one’s own agency of health. For the refugees most likely to have been exposed to trauma, meaningful work – work that is (or can be made) in line with individual people’s skills and interests – is an important route to their own resilience, recovery and the tools to move forward into the future in their new context.
Although many refugees are vocationally qualified, skilled and have prior relevant experience, structural barriers to employment – including English-language difficulties and the limited recognition of foreign qualifications – along with other barriers such as visa conditions, geographical and cultural displacement, and a lack of non-work-related community networks conspire so that they might never get to work in their chosen field. This can result in what is commonly called ‘brain waste’, whereby refugee ‘white-collar’ qualification holders – refugees with professionally orientated qualifications – end up being overqualified for their jobs, and can become trapped in low-skilled employment or work for which they’re considerably overqualified. This can lead to feelings of frustration and low self-worth, or feelings of being underpaid for work that they believe they’re overqualified to be doing. Such feelings can begin to seep into the broader meaning of ‘refugee-ness’ and undermine a refugee’s sense of self.
In one case, Yasmin, a woman who had trained and worked as a nurse in Somalia before migrating to Australia, had struggled in Australia for years to get her nursing qualifications acknowledged and to find occupationally relevant employment in a health setting. By working with a skills recognition programme and a refugee employment organisation, she was able to get back her nursing licence and now works in a large hospital in Sydney in the field in which she was expertly trained. For Yasmin, taking up meaningful employment in the field for which she had been trained was therefore a turning point in her hopes to reclaim having choice and agency in her professional life.
Overcoming Barriers to Meaningful Employment
Meaningful employment in the workplace is similarly challenging. Perhaps the most significant hurdle is the recognition of overseas qualifications: refugees bring degrees and other certificates to Australia, but these are not necessarily immediately recognised by Australian employers or professional organisations. Refugees end up in unskilled jobs using unsuitable qualifications.
To overcome this barrier, many refugees undertake skills recognition and training courses, or return to study to meet Australian standards. Employers can play an important role in the process, for example by offering staff up-skilling, mentoring and internships, providing refugees with local work credentials and professional development.
Language is also a limit to meaningful work for refugees. With minimal language proficiency, refugees will have difficulty describing their credential and elaborating on their work experience. Language training provided by the government and the employers might be useful in enabling refugees to improve on their language ability. Consequently, the employability for refugees will increase.
The Role of Employers in Supporting Refugees’ Career Aspirations
But employers can play a key role in creating opportunities for meaningful work – from maximising the refugee’s skill fit and job progression to effectively supporting refugees in building a long-term career and satisfying work within the business context. That might mean helping a refugee access mentoring, job enlargement and new responsibilities to relax mind-numbing jobs, offer new challenges, and promote career advancement.
Beyond that, when private-sector job-creators hire refugee workers, they’re communicating that they’re ready to embrace diversity, welcome inclusion, and embrace social responsibility – all of which contribute to building positive workplace culture and make good companies look better in their role as public-spirited corporate citizens.
Conclusion
Essentially: meaningful work is integral to both restoring a life and a vision for the future. Employers of refugees can help to restore not just financial independence, but also a meaningful sense of purpose and the ability to make a contribution to the new home.
It is also incumbent upon employers, governments and support organisations to work together to remove barriers, and provide pathways toward employment success so that refugees can fulfil their dreams, and build better lives for themselves and their families.
