Pilbara loses migrant services

The Pilbara’s migrant community has been left in the lurch after a decision by a national charity to transition out of all their existing government-funded community services.

The restructuring of Frontier Services, a body which channels $450,000 of Federal money to migrant workers in Karratha, Port Hedland and Kalgoorlie, has meant the money designed to help them settle is now in jeopardy.

Respite services in Roebourne have also ceased.

The organisation’s transition general manager Glenn Price said a review of its operations in regional and remote Australia earlier this year led to the decision to transition out of all its existing government-funded community services.

“The upshot of these reviews was that Frontier Services concluded that its future work would be based upon community recovery, volunteering programs, on fundraising and on patrol ministry, ” he said.

“In terms of our WA services, the transition will be concluded at the end of the year.

“Frontier Services will continue to honour its commitment to support remote and rural Australia also through its innovative community recovery and volunteering programs.”

A Department of Social Services spokesman said Frontier Services stopped delivering its settlement services in the Pilbara in June and in Kalgoorlie in February this year.

He said the funding was still available to be used by a different service provider.

Mr Price said there were currently ongoing discussions involving government funders and other service providers for the transition of their services in WA.

A Pilbara Multicultural Association spokesman said they hoped another provider could take on the service in Karratha.

“It was fantastic to have a point of contact and someone to help newly arrived people with the challenging period of relocation and new start, ” he said.

“The office provided a settlement service for newly emerging migrants, and you only have to walk in the shopping centre any day to see that Karratha has a huge migrant population.

“Many migrants and refugees are coming to settle in Karratha; they cannot speak English, need to work, need medical accessibility and all the other settlement issues that even we who were born here would sometimes benefit from.”

The spokesman said when you moved to Karratha from anywhere in Australia it was already like coming to a foreign country, so to be pointed in the right direction by a migrant worker was helpful.