Legal support for refugee family reunificaiton

We want funding in order to:

1. Help refugees who settle in Nelson to sponsor family members who are left behind so that they can join them in their new homeland.

2. Assist former refugees to sponsor their wives/partners to New Zealand.

When refugees arrive in Mangere, their first concern is housing and their next urgent concern is about family members left behind. INZ advises refugees that they can apply for family reunification but offers no assistance with this complex process that can take years to complete. The applications are difficult even for English speaking natives. The process is made even more difficult because home countries such as Mynamar actively discourage or impede applications. It is not easy to get primary documentation required by INZ. Also INZ uses agents in Bangkok who are not easy to contact because of the time difference and because English is not their first language. We have 35 open cases and every year our workload compounds with each new intake. Our clients often have language and literacy difficulties, (even in their own native languages) which make it harder to assist them. We received a small grant of $2500 from Nelson City Council so that we can hire translators for client meetings. We have been working with the local refugees since 2008. In the past because each case can take up to 50 hours we struggled to complete the work as part of our Ministry of Justice Contract because of the massive workload from Nelson, Tasman, Buller resident clients in other areas of law such as employment, family, WINZ benefits, debt and housing. We and Wellington Community Law are the only centres which provide legal assistance refugee family reunification and partnership cases.

Our main funder is the Ministry of Justice, (MoJ) and their contract requires us to provide legal help for the residents of Nelson, Tasman and Buller in employment, family, housing, debt, benefits. Our small staff are overwhelmed with clients and cannot consider complicated refugee applications on top of their current heavy workload. The continuation of the Refugee Legal Assistance Project is dependent on additional funding beyond the MoJ grant funds. If we do not receive further funding we will be forced to cut back this important service.