Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak about my constituent Dr Melika Sheikh-Eldin. I met Melika yesterday at the annual conference of the Refugee Communities Advocacy Network. The conference provided former refugees in Victoria with the opportunity to discuss issues of importance to their communities, including access to education, the settlement services program, employment support and, of course, the broader Australian refugee and humanitarian program. Dr Sheikh-Eldin is herself a former refugee and is very well-placed—and was very well-placed yesterday—to talk about her experiences coming to Australia.

Dr Sheikh-Eldin immigrated here as a refugee from Eritrea in 1992 with her three sons. Since settling in Australia over 20 years ago, she has received her doctorate in aquatic science with a research focus on Australian endangered species. This remains a topic of interest to Dr Sheikh-Eldin, and one that she hopes to pursue into the future. Another keen interest of Dr Sheikh-Eldin's is providing settlement support to newly arrived refugees. She has worked for AMES, a settlement service provider, for 13 years and is currently the manager for settlement partnerships for the AMES network in Victoria. In this role, she oversees the Community Guides Network, an internationally recognised program that links newly arrived refugees to non-English speaking communities. She is involved in assisting refugees in other capacities. She is a member of the Refugee Council of Australia, a deputy chairperson of the Horn of African Communities in Victoria and an attendee at the annual International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion conference in Geneva.