RACS goes bush: lawyers tour regional NSW to help refugees and people seeking asylum
The RACS team has been visiting regional towns across New South Wales to provide legal information to refugees and people seeking asylum living outside metropolitan Sydney.
Although Sydney is home to the largest population of people seeking asylum and refugees in the state, many live in regional Australia, helping to meet the needs of rural employers who are understaffed from losing thousands of workers to the big cities. These refugees are often disadvantaged when it comes to accessing particular services – including legal services.
To increase access to justice for those who live outside Sydney, lawyers and paralegals from the RACS team embarked on trips to regional and rural NSW. The aim was to spread the word about the legal services we offer, connecting with people in the community who don’t know about RACS but may have legal needs we can help with.
So far, the RACS Regional Tour has visited Bathurst, Coffs Harbour, Newcastle, Wagga Wagga and Griffith, with trips to other towns planned for the coming weeks.
We collaborated with local organisations who kindly hosted us, and spread the word about our visit through charities, schools, prominent members of the community, places of worship, and local community legal centres.
At each location we held at least two information sessions:
A session explaining the protection visa application and appeal processes to people wanting to seek protection; and,
A session focusing on options for people who were wanting to sponsor their family members to join them in safety in Australia.
In some locations with higher demand, we ran up to four sessions. Most sessions were delivered in English. Where there was a sizeable population from the same language group, we were able to provide legal information directly in that language as well as in English.
Across the 12 sessions we have run so far, more than 300 people received valuable information in-person, and connected with RACS services. We can now provide further assistance to them as and when it’s needed.
Among those attending were many social workers and local service providers, who now also have a concrete understanding of what assistance RACS provides, and how they can refer their clients to RACS for assistance in the future.
With access to justice at the heart of everything we do, the RACS Regional Tour has been a vital way of making sure more refugees are able to get the critical legal help they need to find lasting safety in Australia.
If you live in rural or regional NSW and are interested in hosting a legal information session for refugees and people seeking asylum in your community, please contact us at reception [at] racs.org.au.
Details of confirmed upcoming informations will be shared here.
