Syrian refugees Essam Mahmoud and Douaa Mardini arrived in Australia with their two children a fortnight ago, but already Essam's skills are in high demand.
With Australia in the grip of a national skills shortage, chef and baker Essam couldn't have arrived at a better time — local businesses are clamouring to hire him.
"We are very grateful for the help. We have had the best support we could dream of," he said.
After spending two years displaced in Iraq, Essam and his family have settled in Brunswick Heads in northern New South Wales.
They've been supported by a program known as the Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot — CRISP.
A local support group has worked to find them housing, schools and employment.
"We have been supported so much through this move and they have provided us with everything we need from setting up our Medicare to running errands," Mr Mahmoud said.
One of the key announcements from last week's jobs summit in Canberra was the move to boost the migrant intake by 35,000 per year to help ease the skills shortfall.
So where do refugees fit in?
A perfect match for the region
Sara Gloede put together a support network for Essam and his family.
She and 10 friends registered for the CRISP program last year.
"We're all working mums so we've got limited time, but we really felt confident that we had a big enough group and a big enough spread of skills that we could support them properly, she said.
"It's been such an amazing experience, just from the perspective of working with my friends on it."
Sara Gloede said that Essam's qualifications were a good match for the region.
"We also have a big challenge in our region around shortage of skilled hospitality staff.
"We were purposeful when we spoke to Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia (CRSA), which manages the CRISP program.
"We thought if we could bring in a family who had hospitality skills, firstly it would be easy for them to get employment but it also helps with shortages in the region."
Chief Executive of CRSA Lisa Button said that CRISP is perfectly structured to help refugees find work.
"We all know that in terms of finding work, it's often not what you know, it's who you know," she said.
"I've been wanting to explain the opportunity that the framework of community sponsorship represents to policy-makers to help more humanitarian migrants make a contribution as quickly as possible."
"People who live locally know the local businesses, they know the local employers, they know the local economies and they can advise refugee newcomers on where to look for work.
"[They know] what the business culture is like here, how to prepare, what good courses are to do.
"They fill that knowledge gap and that experience gap."
Lisa Button said similar programs for refugee resettlement have been running in Canada for decades.
Studies of those schemes suggest that 70 per cent of sponsored refugees find employment within their first full year.
But she said there's a distinction between the CRISP program and others which offer refugees employment sponsorship.
"It's about saying whoever you are as a refugee, you have something to offer Australia and with the support and knowledge of local community members, they can help you find the place where you can make those contributions."
The CRISP program will support 1,500 refugees in the next 3 years — and the Federal Government has indicated it would like to expand it.
