Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce

Recent news

AUSTRALIAN COMMUNITY SPONSORSHIP

5 July 2021

The Community Refugee Sponsorship Initiative has now become an incorporated Australian charity operating under the new name of ‘Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia’ (CRSA).

CRSA will be running the Group Mentorship Program again in 2021. This will involve mobilising and training more local groups of volunteers around the country and then linking them with refugees in Australia in need of additional settlement support. CRSA will host online public information sessions in July and August 2021, with the application process to join the program opening in August.

Information on the New Program Intake – Public Information Sessions can be found here.

The new CRSA website also has a short video of the pilot Group Mentorship Program.

AUSTRALIAN ASYLUM POLICY

30 June 2021

7,000 are waiting in limbo, need safety

Currently, there are over 7,000 refugees waiting offshore. These people have already been granted permanent humanitarian visas to enter Australia but are still waiting offshore after been denied entry when the borders closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Stuck in transit, many live without the right to work, study or travel freely. Families with sick children cannot access the healthcare they desperately need. Many have been stuck in this uncertainty for years, frightened and hoping for a better future.

Little has been done by the government to change the barriers to entry for the vast majority of these 7000 people. The Refugee Council of Australia (RCA) and UNHCR have called on the government to apply a blanket travel exemption for humanitarian visa holders, advocating for all of them to be allowed into Australia to start a new life – as they were promised.