The New Zealand Herald and World Vision have launched The Forgotten Millions campaign to raise funds to meet an immense and urgent humanitarian need. With your help we can make a difference for the children and their families in desperate need throughout this region
We need you to help the Forgotten Millions one more time. The Herald and World Vision have relaunched a major campaign to raise funds and help the millions of children left homeless by war in Syria. With your help we can make a difference to the children and their families in desperate need throughout this region
'Thank you in the name of all the refugees," is the first thing the Syrian father-of-three says to us at the Mangere refugee resettlement centre.
"I'm very happy," he says. "Ten days here made me forget it all."
But he is still afraid to give us more than his first name, Khaled, or to have a photo taken.
"It's because his family is still inside Syria, in the regime area," explains our interpreter, Abdul Elah. "If he is talking about anything against the regime, they may arrest them, they may harass them, they may kill them, we don't know. So he is afraid."
Khaled, his wife, son and two daughters are physically safe in New Zealand. But the Mangere centre's challenge, in a six-week orientation programme that all refugees go through, is to help them adjust mentally to a different language and culture at the other end of the Earth.
The Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre. Photo / Nick Reed
"Every refugee has had experiences of grief and loss, leaving their home and family," explains Dr Ann Hood of Refugees As Survivors, which employs 35 people at Mangere and across Auckland to help the psychological adjustment.
"Most have experienced trauma and some have been tortured. Post-traumatic stress disorder and depression are probably the most common things we have to cope with."
Many also have poor physical health. Katrina Penney, who manages the health centre with nine staff for the Auckland Regional Public Health Service, says more than half have chronic needs such as diabetes, asthma, heart conditions or latent tuberculosis.
"People are screened offshore for tuberculosis. If they have active tuberculosis they get treated offshore and when they become non-infectious they can come in through the quota," she says.
Refugee Quota Manager, Qemajl Murati. Photo / Nick Reed
"We screen all the refugees and asylum seekers [again at Mangere]. The purpose of that is to identify their health needs. That helps to identify any health conditions coming into NZ that may be infectious so we can treat those, and identify what they need to protect them against NZ society, such as immunisations."
NZ Immigration's Refugee Quota Branch manager Qemajl Murati, whose mother came here as a refugee from Kosovo, says New Zealand accepts up to 10 per cent of its annual quota of refugees with extreme health needs such as a history of tuberculosis, haemophilia, requiring dialysis or other conditions that would not be allowed under normal immigration criteria.
But the biggest part of the orientation is educational. Maria Hayward, who manages the Centre for Refugee Education for AUT University, says the top priority of her 12 teachers and fluctuating numbers of interpreters and special needs staff is to give refugees "an authentic welcome".
"That means that everything we do shows that we are really thrilled to be able to offer you a home alongside us in this beautiful country," she says.
The education starts with English, because only one in 10 can get by in English when they arrive. One in five, including many women, cannot read and write in any language.
"The majority of the illiterate are women because they are the ones denied educational opportunities in a lot of countries," Ms Hayward says.
"But surprisingly, the husbands are happy with the women learning here. They will say things like, 'It's strange for us, but we are really pleased and we can see that it's good for our women and our families, and anyway we are in a new country and we have to do what's done in New Zealand.'"
The centre has an early childhood centre, two primary school classes, one or two secondary school classes depending on the numbers in each intake, and adult classes which are grouped by English ability for three days a week and by native languages on two days.
"Everyone loves singing," Ms Hayward says. "All these things are therapeutic ... We are a multicultural group with many ethnicities that may have hated one another. We want them to learn to get on with one another."
"They always sing the Maori version first and more loudly and better than Kiwis," Ms Hayward says. "I know a lot of people criticise the national anthem, but in fact the lyrics are about peace and love, and those words have real resonance for people who have missed out on that."
Finding a safe haven does not mean worries are over
Yusra Hawa is safe in New Zealand - but she is still consumed with worry about her children and grandchildren in Syria and Egypt.
Syrian refugee Yusra Howa. Photo / Nick Reed
Mrs Hawa, 69, arrived 12 days ago to join her youngest son Muhanad Slik and his wife and two children, who arrived in January. She has been widowed for 15 years and lived in the Syrian city of Douma with her eldest son Maher, who was 21 and doing compulsory military service when his father died.
Fighting broke out in 2011 between the Free Syrian Army and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"When the revolution started, the regime started shelling and bombing the city," Mrs Hawa says, through an interpreter and local Syrian community leader, Abdul Elah.
"She was sitting with her kids in the corridors away from the bombing and shelling," Mr Elah says. "All the problems of Syria are due to the regime, not Isis."
Mrs Hawa fled to Egypt to join Mr Slik and his family in 2013. They received UN subsidies for five months. Mr Slik found work as a pastry chef, but Maher has not been able to find a job since he and his family reached Egypt four months ago. Maher has four children including a baby boy born six days ago. They are staying with Maher's wife's parents, who are also refugees from Syria and depend on help from other friends to survive.
"Even baby milk, he doesn't have money to buy baby milk," Mrs Hawa says. "I am very worried about him. I am very sad."
Syrian Refugee Yusra Howa and her son Muhanad Slik. Photo / Nick Reed
Meanwhile, her daughter Maha and her husband and three children aged 9 to 14 are still in the Syrian capital Damascus, where they fled after the fighting started in Douma.
Mrs Hawa spent her first four days in New Zealand with Mr Slik and his family in Mt Roskill, but is now doing the standard six-week orientation programme at the Mangere refugee centre. With no English, it is difficult.
"She goes sometimes to the classes, just sitting there," Mr Elah says.
