Hamilton trio set up counselling service for migrants

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Hamilton, August 14, 2018
A group of ethnic counsellors have seen their vision for a counselling service for migrants and former refugees become a reality.
Kaoru Tsukigi, Freda X’ia, and Vanisri Mills met at Wintec five years ago when they were studying towards a degree in counselling.
About the Group
That was not the only thing they had in common; all of them were migrants who had come to New Zealand to settle in Hamilton.
Kaoru is from Japan, while Freda is Chinese and Vanisri is from Sri Lanka.
Prior to studying at Wintec, Vanisri had practised as psychiatric nurse but like the others, she wanted to become a counsellor.
“One day, I was having a conversation with one of our Wintec tutors, Vivienne Flintoff, and she said that while there were fewer jobs for graduates at that time due to funding challenges, ‘there is a place for you.’ She gave me hope for my dream,” Vanisri said.
Service to Community
“We were all graduating as counsellors and as a group we wanted to do something for our community as ethnic counsellors.” Kaoru said.
Vanisri said that all of them benefitted from the practical training and the shared modules offered by Wintec, as this helped them grow networks with practising social workers.
They also studied English at Wintec’s Centre for Languages.
A Beginning
They formed Diversity Counselling NZ in 2013 along with Japanese counsellor, Kou Kunishige, who is also a New Zealand qualified counsellor.
Kaoru said that they had no money but had a vision to set up a counselling service for migrants, refugees and international students.
“We understand their culture and the meaning of being a migrant and we saw the need to offer counselling in their own language.”
The service is filling a gap in New Zealand as the only service that offers a professional counselling service for ethnic people.
“As well as Japanese, Sri Lankan and Chinese languages, we have qualified counsellors fluent in Hungarian and Korean,” Kaoru said.
The group said that wellbeing counselling is a foreign concept to many in the international community and there are cultural barriers.
Kaoru said that for many people, there can be a stigma associated with seeing a counsellor, while some countries have no counselling system at all.
The challenges
“In New Zealand, they can often have no one to talk to, and their cultural beliefs may make it difficult to ask for help. We start with explaining confidentiality to gain trust and this can be a challenge in itself, as even the word confidential has different meanings with different cultures,” Vanisri said.
In China, the same word is used for counselling and psychological problems.
Freda said this is a significant barrier to people seeking help.
“People don’t want others to know. So, it is important that we honour this by offering options like home visits and if we can’t go to them, we can use Skype to reach people in other parts of New Zealand,” Freda said.
“People can come to us directly, they don’t need a referral.”
Free Wellbeing Programme
Reaching out is important and they also work through groups and organisations and with families as well as individuals.
Since 2014, Diversity Counselling NZ has launched a free family wellbeing programme for migrants and refugees.
The programme also provides interpreters and the Group has a number of other programmes such as ‘Breathing Space Programme’ for ethnic children, and workshops for the ethnic community and Chinese and Japanese workshops.
“We often don’t talk when we have a problem. We smile and our smiles hide what is underneath,” Vanisri said.
For more information, please visit Diversity Counselling NZ.
For obtaining a qualification, please visit qualification in counselling at Wintec
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Photo Caption:
Vanisri Mills Freda Xia and Kaoru Tsukigi
(Picture Supplied)