Learning to See Differently Supporting Refugee-Background Students at Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand

This report is a summary of learnings from involvement in the student-run club Global Remix (GR) at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) this year. It is written by students from Geography 404: Young People and Participatory Development (GEOG 404) and other members of GR. It aims to shake up stereotypes about refugee-background (RB) students, and show not only the challenges they face, but also their strengths and resilience. It builds on research carried out in 2006 by another GEOG 404 research team, which looked at how RB students could be better supported at VUW. One of the recommendations of this report was that a mentoring programme for RB students be established. So, at first, our research aimed to contribute to the development of this programme. At our first student-led meeting with RB students, people also suggested setting up a club, and we agreed to help get one up and running. As the year progressed, we realised that collective, informal mentoring through the club was working for people and a more formal, one-on-one programme was not actually appropriate at this stage.