Working at QPASTT has made me look at life differently, to be more accepting and have a deeper tolerance of life. It has made me a better person.”
Saira Buksh, member of QPASTT’s Support Services Team since 2007
“I was very new to the Australian workforce when I applied for a role at QPASTT. I couldn’t even say ‘Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma’ properly because I’d never even heard of it. When I first came for my interview, it was very comfortable and welcoming and I felt very much at home right there and then. The feel of this organisation was different.
When I started at QPASTT, our client base was mainly from Bosnia, and slowly those client backgrounds changed in response to what was happening around the world. When you understand the work that we do, the clients that we work for, and what they’ve gone through in life, you know that what they need from us is comforting words, a genuine sense that we really do care and the knowledge that they are safe here.
QPASTT is a place where you can fit in, no matter where you have come from. You bring your own experience, but QPASTT has a nature of its own. It is very accepting, very multicultural and you learn every day. Working at QPASTT has made me look at life differently, to be more accepting and have a deeper tolerance of life. It has made me a better person. I think that is what makes me always want to come back to work.”
25 Years of Welcome – QPASTT’s Support Services Team
As part of our 25 year celebrations, we’re sharing the reflections of our Support Services team. They are the first point of welcome for our clients, stakeholders and staff. They are highly skilled, demonstrating the power of presence and kindness each day and creating a safe space to hold people in moments of great pain and distress.
While their stories share their thoughts on what it takes to cultivate this daily practice of kindness, care and dignity for people who have endured so much, their common reflection is of how supporting refugee survivors at QPASTT has been a consistent source of personal and professional growth that continues to deepen their own empathy and compassion.
