Refugee Voices reports the findings of a Department of Labour (DoL) research project that inquired into the resettlement experiences of refugees in New Zealand. The information will be used to assess and improve refugee support systems and assist with the development of refugee resettlement policy.
Purpose
The objective was to describe refugees’ resettlement experiences over a broad range of areas including their backgrounds, the information they had about New Zealand prior to arrival, their arrival experiences, housing, getting help, family reunification, health, learning English, adult education, labour force and other activities, financial support, children and teenagers, social networks, discrimination, cultural integration and settling in New Zealand.
Methodology
Participatory research principles guided the project and resulted in the recruitment of research associates from refugee communities who trained as research assistants and interviewers. The research associates had a deep understanding of the cultures of the people they interviewed and were able to build trusting relationships with them. An Advisory Group provided input into the design of the research.
The sampling frame was the DoL’s immigration database, limited to refugees living in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch, selected to balance gender, nationality, age and family size. Within each stratum, refugees were randomly selected from those aged 13 years and over. The interview instrument was a paperbased questionnaire with both open-ended and closed-ended questions. Vulnerability of participants and a lack of expertise in the mental health area meant that questions were not asked about mental health or about the specific circumstances that led the participants to become refugees.
Face-to-face interviews were carried out in the participants’ own languages, which included languages such as Arabic, Assyrian, Kurdish, Tamil, Somali, Farsi, Burmese and Dari. The interviews were supplemented with material from focus groups that were carried out with men, women, teenagers, Burmese refugees resettling in Nelson, and refugee service providers.