For Juan Santamaria, arriving on the other side of the world to a pantry filled with food from his native Venezuela was a warm welcome on a cold day.
A criminal lawyer in his home country who fled fearing for his life, Santamaria came to Australia with his parents and sister under a government pilot program for community groups to sponsor refugees to resettle in Australia.
“We were able to arrive in Australia with temporary accommodation, where we found a fully equipped house, including a pantry stocked with typical food from our country.
“From the very first moment we arrived we received the solidarity and willingness to help from the Australian community.”
Arriving on an unusually frigid summer evening in Melbourne, Santamaria’s sponsorship group had even negotiated with an airport chaplain to help smooth the passage through Australia’s customs and immigration.
“Meeting [the group] is something we will never forget: they welcomed us with banners and a hug that conveyed a lot of trust and confidence that we would be fine.”
The federal government will announce Thursday morning that the pilot program which brought the Santamarias to Australia – the Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot (Crisp) – will now be made a permanent part of Australia’s humanitarian migration program.
Under the Crisp model, community groups volunteer to support the resettlement of a refugee family (nominated by the UNHCR for resettlement), offering assistance from the fundamental – temporary housing, assistance with enrolling in school or registering for Medicare – to the daily extras – navigating a public transport system or buying a phone.
The assistant minister for citizenship and multicultural affairs, Julian Hill, says that through the pilot program more than 500 refugees had been supported by church, community and sporting groups to settle in cities and towns across Australia.
“Community refugee sponsorship has rightly enjoyed support right across the parliament and in communities because it works. Crisp will now be a permanent and valued feature within Australia’s overall humanitarian program,” Hill told the Guardian.
The permanent program would set a target of 200 refugees resettled from 2026, with potential to expand.
“Thank you to the many Australians who have made the pilot a success, welcoming people to Australia and helping them to set up their new life here.”
Santamaria says the Crisp sponsorship had smoothed his family’s resettlement in a country where they otherwise knew nobody, and didn’t speak the language at the time.
“We were fortunate to … connect with people like our group who have a desire to help, not only with the logistics but also with all the emotional support and affection they have shown us through their dedication to us.
“The sponsorship is for 12 months, but in our case, with our group, we have gained friends for life.”
Guy Abrahams, one member of the group which sponsored the Santamaria family, says the benefits have flowed both ways.
“The embrace by a community of people coming from difficult times is perhaps the most reassuring and comforting contact newly arrived refugees can have.
“But for them to be able to step into our homes and be treated effectively as members of our families, to be shown respect and love, has been incredibly fulfilling and meaningful for all of our group as well.”
Abrahams says one of the most valuable things sponsors help with is trust.
“It’s one thing to know about the refugee crisis in an abstract form, but it’s quite another to have personal engagement with refugees who have gone through the most horrific trauma. To sit with them and bear witness to what they’ve gone through. To be a stable and reliable figure that they can learn to trust. Because for a lot of refugees, the ability to trust – a government, a community, neighbours – is a luxury they have not been afforded.”
Abrahams’ sponsorship group is part of the Jewish social justice network Stand Up. “We all share refugee history in our own families,” he says, “and it always felt important to pay that forward, to support people just as our ancestors and relatives were.”
Lisa Button, the chief executive of Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia, has welcomed the government’s announcement. It is recognition, she says, of the “appetite from everyday Australians to get involved”.
Button says while Crisp is currently “modest in scale … there are so many ways in which everyday citizens, clubs, faith groups, schools and businesses could play a role if invited to be involved.
“We need all hands on deck in responding to the scale of global forced displacement and the Crisp offers a robust yet flexible way for people to become involved in any part of Australia.”
