Refugees of all religions happy to receive a little care in the Christmas spirit

Polait Kiyork, an Auckland resettlement caseworker, organises gifts for families new to New Zealand. Photo / Greg Bowker

Aucklanders tell us about great things in their communities.

A strange thing happened a week or two back, when I was fossicking around for an interview with former refugees. An advocate said they were media-shy "because refugees have such a negative connotation at the moment". Around the same time, grumbling folks on talk-back and social media had been wildly misinterpreting the words of Dame Susan Devoy as the grinch who stole the word Christmas from our lexicon. (In fact, she said it was up to everyday New Zealanders to decide how to observe Christmas, in support of the Regional Migrants Services Trust, which was using secular language on end-of-year event invitations.)

I called New Zealand Red Cross, which runs refugee resettlement programmes, to see what their experience had been. Refugee a bad word? Christmas banned? Not at all.

Wellington head office folks put me in touch with Polait Kiyork, an Auckland resettlement caseworker. She is one of a team of six who work with former refugees for their first year or so in the country, helping them with work and local knowledge once they have done a six-week orientation at the Mangere reception centre.

Polait arrived here in 2000 with her husband, parents and sister after six years in a United Nations camp in Jordan. She is a Syrian from Iraq, one of a persecuted Assyrian Christian minority who was accepted here on humanitarian grounds as she and her family had no legal status in Jordan.

We caught up as the team were wrapping presents for the 15 families - about 50 people - they support. The families are from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Burma. Most are Muslim, a few have other religious beliefs.

"But all our families appreciate these Christmas gifts," says Polait. "They never had this in their countries, but they love that people care. We have 600 volunteers supporting people all around Auckland, and this is another way to support them. The non-Christians are very happy to see that people are caring about them."

Many of the gifts included suspiciously football-shaped parcels (boxes of boots were awaiting distribution too) - Polait says the round-ball game is a huge uniting factor for nearly all cultures. Mainly for boys, but girls from Afghanistan are thrilled to find they too can play sport here.

Polait's experience of being treated as a "non-citizen" in the majority Arabic cultures of Iraq and Jordan gives her plenty of insight into making human connections a priority.

When she arrived in New Zealand, the Assyrian community was fewer than 100; now it has ballooned to around 2000-3000 as more people flee Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. An Anglican church shared its buildings so the community could meet for mass and begin language and culture classes for children born here. The community built its own church in Maich Rd, Manurewa, two years ago.

Christmas celebrations in this Eastern church do not include gift-giving, just plenty of sharing of food and a midnight mass. There is a special choir, the children perform their own songs, not western carols - but Polait laughs that they do now decorate a tree in our Kiwi custom. Dishes include a sheep's stomach stuffed with spicy rice and mince; pickles, flatbread and klecha, a dough filled with walnuts, honey and dates. Sharing is the common theme.

"Refugees are people who need the support of the community. The first step is not to be shy," she says. "We say to people to make that first step - say hello. Language is hard, but if you greet people, that can lead to bigger things."

So Happy Christmas (and a gift or two) it is then.