Brisbane City Council Grant Boosts Golden Key Refugee Program

A new tutoring program for high school-age refugees established by honours students at three Brisbane universities has received a funding boost.

The Brisbane City Council has allocated almost $20,000 in a Community Development Assistance Grant to the Refugee Tutoring Program.

It was set up by the three Brisbane Chapters of the Golden Key International Honour Society at The University of Queensland, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology.

The program aims to assist newly arrived refugee students with their English, literacy skills and general class work to make their arrival in a new country less traumatic.

Project Co-ordinator Amber Cernovs said Australia accepted 12,000 refugees each year.

"Many of these refugees are young people who have arrived in Australia on their own, having had to leave their family behind, unable to contact anyone in their home country and knowing no one in Australia. It is these young people that the Golden Key Refugee Tutoring Program aims to assist," she said.

The Golden Key project was set up with three very specific aims: to assist the academic performance of refugee students, to aid their social integration into a new culture by creating networks, and to educate Golden Key members and the community about the situation faced by refugees arriving in Australia.

Golden Key International Honour Society recognises the academic achievement of students in the top 15 percent of their undergraduate degrees. The organisation also runs many community service events for its members, such as the Refugee Tutoring Program.

Members volunteer to become tutors and attend a training session run by staff from organisations that are closely involved in work with refugees such as the Red Cross and the Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma (QPASTT). Once they have been trained tutors are then allocated to a particular school with a high refugee population, such as Yeronga State High School or to after school tutoring at Brisbane City Council libraries co-ordinated by the Australian Red Cross.

The project was initiated earlier this year, but the funding was secured only last week. Ms Cernovs said the funding was "wonderful news".

"It means that we can provide bi-lingual dictionaries for the students, some travel allowance for our 40 tutors, a recognition event for the tutors and the students as well as raising the awareness of the plight of refugees through publicity," she said.

"Although the funding from the Brisbane City Council is only for a year, we hope it can be established for the long term during this year. "It is the sort of program that is desperately needed in Brisbane."

For more information, contact Erin Wilson, at UQ Golden Key Chapter on 0414 463 283.