The role of ethnic community organisations in promoting social integration of African immigrants in Australia

© 1995 Dr. Benjamin Christian OkaiThe abolition of the 'White' Australia Policy in 1973 resulted in the broadening of refugee intake and a proliferation of small ethnic groups settling in Australia from all parts of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa. Despite this fact, the settlement needs of these small ethnic groups have received very little attention in the Australian literature. Since these small groups consist largely of recent arrivals, they do not have the institutional structures or collective resources of other older more established ethnic communities. Thus, these small newly arrived groups are yet to develop a second generation and their members may have difficulty in accessing the many settlement services which have evolved since the Galbally Report in 1978. This Report based settlement policy on collective self-help and enshrined principles of multiculturalism and cultural maintenance which had been developed earlier on in the late 1960s. The idea is that ethnic communities are better placed to assist their own members in the settlement process. This dissertation thus explores and interprets the role which African self-help ethnic organisations play in promoting the social integration of their members in Australia. No detailed study of African ethnic community organisations, from a participatory perspective, has been conducted in Australia to date. The thesis offers a beginning towards addressing this gap in the field of migration and ethnic affairs in Australia. Based on data researched through an intensive interview program with representatives and leaders of 18 of the 22 ethnic African community associations in Victoria, an heuristic philosophical framework for social research was utilised in this study to explain the role of African ethnic community organisations in the social integration of their members. A typology of these organisations was based on association goals and functions. Set in the context of Australian immigration and settlement policies as these affect the immigration and settlement of African immigrants and refugees in this country, a political economy approach adopted in the analysis of the study makes it possible to identify the structural causes of social problems in which African ethnic community organisations are entangled. The study findings confirms this view, as a majority of respondents stated that structural barriers such as the way and manner immigration and settlement policies are practised in Australia, disadvantage the effectiveness of their organisations. The findings also show that African community organisations are not able to function effectively in delivering social welfare service to members due to the limited and contained national intake of black Africans, which directly affects the size of membership and the political allocation of resources of these organisations. Despite the exploratory nature of this study, the research findings nevertheless point to strong evidence that social integration of immigrant groups is related to the support and services which ethnic community organisations are able to provide to their members in the host country. The findings suggest that African ethnic community organisations assist their members in the initial and longer-term settlement process. The majority of the respondents indicated that their ethnic organisations provided them with a sense of identity, friendship and cultural companionship. The study findings signal the mechanisms by which inadequate resources and lack of institutional support for ethnic community organisations affects the viability of the role of these organisations in the settlement process of their members. This is inconsistent with Australian multicultural policy