Settlement Services + Social Enterprises 

Settlement agencies and social enterprises have much to gain from working with each other, as do the many refugees and migrants that they both support. Find out about different social enterprises that support refugees and migrants, and how to connect with them below.

Benefits for social enterprises

  • Expanded capacity to increase number of referrals to social enterprise
  • Settlement agencies, through their ongoing work with clients and communities, are well placed to ‘screen’ and identify candidates who are appropriate, and refer them
  • Settlement agencies have an expansive knowledge of and expertise in providing and connecting wrap-around services
  • Expand reach and impact of social enterprises

Benefits for settlement services

  • Opportunity to enhance settlement outcomes through facilitating greater community linkages and employment opportunities
  • Creates opportunities for settlement services to refer clients to local businesses and programs that can meet their needs, interests and skills
  • Develop local links with organisations to foster strong relationships and potential collaborations
  • Extend outreach of wrap around service support
  • The ability to reach individuals or communities who they may have not previously engaged with

Career Seekers Sydney Office

CareerSeekers is a non-profit organisation supporting Australia’s humanitarian entrants into professional careers. Our program provides in-depth preparation and support to both refugees and people seeking asylum who are either currently studying at university, or looking to restart their professional career in Australia

CareerSeekers Melbourne Office

CareerSeekers is a non-profit organisation supporting Australia’s humanitarian entrants into professional careers. Our program provides in-depth preparation and support to both refugees and people seeking asylum who are either currently studying at university, or looking to restart their professional career in Australia

Mantua Sewing Studio

Mantua Sewing Studio is a Brisbane-based social enterprise that provides local, ethical and high quality design and manufacturing services for Australian clothing labels by drawing on the sewing expertise of women from refugee and migrant backgrounds.

Ignite Small Business Start-ups

Ignite Small Business Start-ups initiative facilitates business creation for a diverse range of people, with a focus on those from vulnerable communities, such as people from refugee and migrant backgrounds, who are keen to establish a small business or expand an existing one. Ignite provides one on one, tailored support for business start ups, and connections to a resource team of experts who provide business advice and guidance for the establishment of successful ventures.

Community Corporate

 

Community Corporate specialises in working with refugee and migrant communities, as well as women, youth and long term unemployed. Their custom designed refugee employment program is tailored to the appetite of corporate partners, by adapting and creating different processes for recruitment and entry into their businesses. Community Corporate brokers strategic partnerships between the community, corporate and public sectors, and creates opportunities for organisations and leaders with shared values and a commitment to social responsibility to collaborate.

 

 

Community Corporate

Community Corporate specialises in working with refugee and migrant communities, as well as women, youth and long term unemployed. Their custom designed refugee employment program is tailored to the appetite of corporate partners, by adapting and creating different processes for recruitment and entry into their businesses. Community Corporate brokers strategic partnerships between the community, corporate and public sectors, and creates opportunities for organisations and leaders with shared values and a commitment to social responsibility to collaborate.

 

Community Corporate

Community Corporate specialises in working with refugee and migrant communities, as well as women, youth and long term unemployed. Their custom designed refugee employment program is tailored to the appetite of corporate partners, by adapting and creating different processes for recruitment and entry into their businesses. Community Corporate brokers strategic partnerships between the community, corporate and public sectors, and creates opportunities for organisations and leaders with shared values and a commitment to social responsibility to collaborate.

 

Community Corporate

Community Corporate specialises in working with refugee and migrant communities, as well as women, youth and long term unemployed. Their custom designed refugee employment program is tailored to the appetite of corporate partners, by adapting and creating different processes for recruitment and entry into their businesses. Community Corporate brokers strategic partnerships between the community, corporate and public sectors, and creates opportunities for organisations and leaders with shared values and a commitment to social responsibility to collaborate.

 

Community Corporate

Community Corporate specialises in working with refugee and migrant communities, as well as women, youth and long term unemployed. Their custom designed refugee employment program is tailored to the appetite of corporate partners, by adapting and creating different processes for recruitment and entry into their businesses. Community Corporate brokers strategic partnerships between the community, corporate and public sectors, and creates opportunities for organisations and leaders with shared values and a commitment to social responsibility to collaborate.

 

Community Corporate

Community Corporate specialises in working with refugee and migrant communities, as well as women, youth and long term unemployed. Their custom designed refugee employment program is tailored to the appetite of corporate partners, by adapting and creating different processes for recruitment and entry into their businesses. Community Corporate brokers strategic partnerships between the community, corporate and public sectors, and creates opportunities for organisations and leaders with shared values and a commitment to social responsibility to collaborate.

 

Brotherhood of St Laurence

The Brotherhood of St Laurence provides employment services for refugees and migrants. They this by partnering with a variety of businesses across different industries. They also offer apprenticeships, traineeships and labour-hire, using the expertise of BSL to maximise positive employment outcomes. Australian apprenticeships and traineeships offer opportunities to train, study and simultaneously earn an income in a wide range of occupations and trades

Hotel Housekeeping

Hotel Housekeeping provides outsourced and on-demand hotel housekeeping services and staff to hotels and resorts across Australia.

They do this by providing support and industry training to refugees and migrants, ensuring successful transitions into sustainable employment for individuals, and creating exceptional teams for employers.

Hotel Housekeeping

Hotel Housekeeping provides outsourced and on-demand hotel housekeeping services and staff to hotels and resorts across Australia.

They do this by providing support and industry training to refugees and migrants, ensuring successful transitions into sustainable employment for individuals, and creating exceptional teams for employers.

 

 

Hotel Housekeeping

Hotel Housekeeping provides outsourced and on-demand hotel housekeeping services and staff to hotels and resorts across Australia.

They do this by providing support and industry training to refugees and migrants, ensuring successful transitions into sustainable employment for individuals, and creating exceptional teams for employers.

Hotel Housekeeping

Hotel Housekeeping provides outsourced and on-demand hotel housekeeping services and staff to hotels and resorts across Australia.

They do this by providing support and industry training to refugees and migrants, ensuring successful transitions into sustainable employment for individuals, and creating exceptional teams for employers.

Hotel Housekeeping

Hotel Housekeeping provides outsourced and on-demand hotel housekeeping services and staff to hotels and resorts across Australia.

They do this by providing support and industry training to refugees and migrants, ensuring successful transitions into sustainable employment for individuals, and creating exceptional teams for employers.

Hotel Housekeeping

Hotel Housekeeping provides outsourced and on-demand hotel housekeeping services and staff to hotels and resorts across Australia.

They do this by providing support and industry training to refugees and migrants, ensuring successful transitions into sustainable employment for individuals, and creating exceptional teams for employers.

Hotel Housekeeping

Hotel Housekeeping provides outsourced and on-demand hotel housekeeping services and staff to hotels and resorts across Australia.

They do this by providing support and industry training to refugees and migrants, ensuring successful transitions into sustainable employment for individuals, and creating exceptional teams for employers.

Catalysr

Catalysr runs intensive entrepreneurship programs for high-performing migrant and refugee entrepreneurs – aka Migrapreneurs – who want to find success in Australia through starting a tech start up or social enterprise. On top of entrepreneurship education, they also provide personal and professional coaching, access to networks, customers and funding.

The Social Outfit

The Social Outfit is a fashion label with a difference. They provide employment and training to people from refugee and new migrant communities in clothing production, retail, design and marketing. Their social business model builds skills in a supportive environment, interacting with broader Sydney communities and producing ethical fashion that reflects a hopeful Australian spirit.

Green Connect

Green Connect are a non-for-profit social enterprise who employ young people and former refugees
in jobs that help the planet and the community. They have five business units:

·       A Fair Food farm, selling fruit, vegetables, herbs, free-range meat, eggs, honey and flowers. We also run farm tours, workshops, school excursions and corporate volunteer days.

·        A Zero Waste Op Shop, selling, giving away and recycling second-hand items

·       A Zero Waste service, designing sustainable events, managing event waste to compost and recycle as much as possible, undertaking waste audits for businesses, and providing waste consultancy services

·        Gardening and Landscaping, providing commercial garden maintenance, large-scale planting and mulching, and residential garden design and blitzes

·       Staffing Solutions, providing hardworking, reliable staff for labour hire and recruitment

 

 

Her Kitchen Table

Her Kitchen Table is a beautiful blend of sharing foods, values, exchange of love and embracing the talents of multicultural women based in Canberra. Women rich in diverse cultural backgrounds can use this platform to share their unique cultures and stories through home-style-food. On the one hand, this platform empowers culturally diverse women to turn their passion into a profession while on the other hand, it focuses on connecting the broader community with the spirit of exchange and love.

Find a social enterprise that works with refugees and migrants near you 

In referring a client to a social enterprise, keep the following in mind:

  • If you are going to have lots of clients over time who might be referred, reach out to the social enterprise and ask what they are specifically looking for in participants.
  • What is the client’s suitability to engage with the social enterprise? Do they have appropriate interests and skills where necessary?
  • Is it practical for the client to engage with the social enterprise – do they have appropriate transport options, or access to childcare for example?

Can’t view the map, download a list of social enterprises here.

 

What is a social enterprise? 

Social enterprises are organisations that operate with a purpose. They are defined as organisations that:

  • are led by an economic, social, cultural, or environmental mission consistent with a public or community benefit
  • trade to fulfil their mission
  • derive a substantial portion of their income from trade, and
  • reinvest the majority of their profit or surplus in the fulfilment of their mission

Many social enterprises operate with the purpose of supporting refugees and new migrants, for example by linking them with employment and training opportunities, or directly hiring them to manufacture or roll out their goods or services. Many social enterprises that work with refugees and migrants also provide significant wrap-around support by working with individual clients to support their needs. Wrap around support may include activities such as transportation to the workplace, pre-employment and ongoing training and professional development, mentoring opportunities, and the provision other settlement information where possible.

Partnerships and referrals with and from settlement agencies have the capacity to benefit individual clients, social enterprises, and the settlement sector. 

“Mantua is not just a job it’s a family. I come here and forget all my worries, we don’t know where the time goes”

Graduate of Manuta pilot training program and previously employed as a level 1 Trainee Machinist.

His family has been farming the beans for many generations. He began importing his beans to Australia and needed support to build a structure around his business and develop a business model. His business went through challenging times as he changed partners and investors. Ignite Enterprise Facilitators (EFs) networked him to their resource team accountant who provided expert advice and his company is now back on track. With new partners and investors the business is now doing well and expanding.

44 year old Kenyan man whose village in Kenya grows AAA grade coffee beans