Yuwal, a FUSE 2025 participant and member of MYAN Australia’s Youth Advisory Group (YAG), is a Commerce student at the University of Melbourne. As a young refugee, he’s passionate about strengthening support and independence for refugee and multicultural communities, a focus reflected in his FUSE project, ‘Refugee Empowerment Workshops for Language, Employment, and Independence‘.
As someone with lived experience of being a refugee and having done lots of work in this sector, I was expecting to hear things I have already heard. However, the Migration, Refugees and Statelessness Interdisciplinary Conference 2025 was an amazing opportunity for me to learn and expand my knowledge on the bigger picture of refugees and migration.
The event, held by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute provided an opportunity for students, researchers and organisations to share the different perspectives, experiences, hardships and success of migrants and refugees. Throughout the day, each presenter showed their passion and dedication towards their topic with their insightful knowledge. The amount of research and techniques highlighted the effort put into each presentation and this was reflected through the insightful questions that followed each presentation.
Ranging from the Social Media Ban to Culturally Embedded Networking to Migration in Rural Japan, each presenter had unique topics which explored different issues, ideas and solutions. Yet, undertones of multiculturalism through community, stigma and culture were present in all discussions. One of my favourite presentations on the day was regarding the role of Education in resettlement in regional Australia. The speaker, Anna Xavier, talked about the lack of infrastructure to support refugees which is a common theme and systemic issue that I advocate for as well as how education acts as a bridge that connects these refugees to the communities in regional Australia.
The conference showed me a bigger world about refugees which isn’t just about improving community engagement and having more representation but also about how social media affects the youth, how migrants analyse Australia as a place to move to, the hardships of refugee women seeking employment or suffering from gynaecological cancer among many more fascinating yet crucial topics which are typically unheard of when discussing multiculturalism.
One of my favourite quotes from the day is “care is reciprocal” which highlighted the symbiotic relationship between refugees and organisations when considering entrepreneurship in women who receive support and later provide employment opportunities for other refugee and migrant women.
By the end of the event, I was inspired to think about the bigger picture more and to acknowledge the depth of research required just to understand even a small portion of the experience of migrants and refugees whilst going away with an understanding that for all these topics, culture is something that is ever-present and is something that needs to be considered as it always has an affect on how things play out.