Migrant and Refugee Settlement Services of the ACT held an official opening of its new office in the Crawford Centre last Tuesday.

MARSS chief executive Dewani Bakkum said to begin with the Queanbeyan service would be reliant on volunteers and would focus on community development programs.

She said these would include English conversation classes and a homework club for 12 to 25-year-olds.

MARSS was born out of the Migrant Resource Centre of Canberra and Queanbeyan before it split creating the Queanbeyan Multicultural Centre and MARSS in Canberra.

“Our heart was always here,” Ms Bakkum said.

“We’ve been settling people in Queanbeyan for years so we knew there was a need here. “Migrants don’t get fully equipped in six months and we want to capture everyone in different stages of their settlement.”

Speaking at the opening, long-time Queanbeyan resident and MARSS treasurer Steve Taskovski said the demographics of Queanbeyan were changing.

He said the community needed to reach out and embrace migrants from south-east Asia and Africa just as they had done with Europeans in past generations.

“Together we are better and stronger,” Mr Taskovski said.

Mayor Tim Overall officially opened the centre and said he had noticed the change in demographics particularly at citizenship ceremonies.

These days you could find more than 40 people participating from more than 20 countries, he said.

Cr Overall praised the service for helping the whole community by assisting migrants through the difficult task of beginning their lives in a new country.

Ms Bakkum said moving forward the service would work with other community groups, particularly Queanbeyan Multicultural Centre, to develop the best way for the services to work together to help migrants.

While all funding MARSS currently receives is designated for use in the ACT she said the service would approach the NSW and federal governments for funding to better equip the new office.