New refugee sponsorship programme soon to be rolled out

Everyday New Zealanders will soon be given the chance play a bigger role helping new refugees settle in, thanks to a new Community Organisation Refugee Sponsorship (CORS) scheme that will soon be rolled out. A pilot settlement scheme which allows community groups to sponsor refugees has proved so successful, an extended programme will soon be rolled out. Hisham Al-Zarzour recommends the Community Organisation Refugee Sponsorship (CORS) programme having come to New Zealand under the pilot, in 2018. Listen to this episode of Voices hereFOLLOW Voices on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. When Hisham Alzarzour got the call that he had been selected for a pilot resettlement scheme which would see his family settled in New Zealand, he jumped at the chance."To be honest, I will say yes if they will tell me any country. I thought first just to say 'Yes, please'," he said.Hisham and his wife were living in Jordan at the time, having fled Syria after the war broke out. More than twenty years later, Syria is still war torn.As a geography teacher, Hisham already knew a little bit about New Zealand but one of the great things about the new scheme is that the community organisation sponsoring his family were able to tell him more while he was packing up his life in Jordan."I was talking to the people who will be my neighbors," he said, "I more peaceful or more confident. This is very good, like, to know the kind of the life you will live there."They also sent photos of the house the family would live in and their soon-to-be new neighbourhood."I start to feel I live there, from Jordan. This was very practical and a very smart way to make the person feel more safe, we can say," said Hisham. Hisham Alzarzour with his family.The South West Baptist Church in Christchurch sponsored three refugee families. Nick Regnault was part of the team that looked after the Alzarzour family and he agrees that those early phone calls were really practical."We got to understand a little bit about what their concerns were coming to New Zealand, and were able to answer those to some degree," said Nick"On the face of it, it's kind of bringing together two different cultures but underneath all that, we're all human and the needs that a family has in say the Middle East are pretty similar to the needs that I have with my family."The Alzarzour family arrived in New Zealand in 2018. They spend two weeks in the Mangere Refugee centre before heading to their new home in Christchurch…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details