Two members of Sydney's Lebanese community are helping refugees and newly arrived migrants transition into Australian society with a new mentoring program.
They're giving participants in the new start-up business program - Quest - access to their own skills, and those of other well-established entrepreneurs.
Youth transition worker Naveen Krishnasamy has worked with refugees and new migrants for several years, and knows well the barriers they face upon arriving in Australia.
Mr Krishnasamy says through his roles with the Lebanese Muslim Association and Thrive Youth Transition Support program, he identified several key issues where migrants need support.
"Primarily like education, employment, media representation - which is pertinent now - and also social cohesion," he said.
He helped develop the Quest program, and said the thriving world of start-up businesses needed to be given more focus.
"We expose these people who are coming through, who have newly arrived in Australia and are having certain issues fitting in, or looking for jobs or even getting educated, we expose them to a new way of thinking about themselves and understanding that they are their own competitive advantage," he said.
Mr Krishnasamy's using his own skills - like pitching ideas, marketing and networking - to help participants grow their own start-up ideas.
He said many already have skills and ideas that could flourish into creating sustainable solutions for people who need them most.
"Particularly those who have come here for humanitarian reasons, because their experience is not recognised here, they may have worked overseas they may have worked in some of those countries that are currently in conflict for example, and the people they may have worked for, the positions they may have worked in, that experience isn't necessarily counted here in Australia, it's not considered appropriate for the Australian work climate," he said.
He said there needs to be a shift from archaic "experience-based" economies to new "skills-based" economies, which is why he's trying to foster and encourage people who don't necessarily fit the mould of the standard business type.
"One of the hardest things was trying to actually sell the idea to them because for a lot of people this is new, this is something they've never really engaged in before and when you sort of go to people and talk about hackathons and entrepreneurship and incubators and all those kinds of terms this sort of jargon if you will, it can be quite intimidating, especially for someone who has just arrived in the country," he said.
Political illustrator Reuben Brand is part of the Quest mentoring program too.
He said his artistic background is helpful for those wanting to start a start-up.
"I love to build on creativity, I work in the arts so I've co-founded a lot of different start up organisations and it's about thinking outside the box, thinking creatively and building something that will contribute positively to our harmonious society," he said.
Mr Brand says the ideas of migrants and refugees also, don't have to be tech-based.
"It's utilising existing skills, but helping them hone those skills to create something fantastic, new, fresh exciting, it can be anything from a start up in the food industry to the arts film video. Anything that they bring to the table and they want to explore or to flesh out a little bit more our job is to talk through the idea, what is it, is it going to work, what are the benefits how is it going to scale up," he said.
A three-day workshop - Questathon - is being held at Sydney's University of Technology this weekend to look at the issues.
