Adam Nkeshimana, a refugee from Burundi, works with Heidi Birgel, co-ordinator of the volunteer tutor scheme at the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre in 2005. Burundi, located between Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was racked by civil war from 1993 to 2005. It is estimated that 300,000 people were killed in the conflict.

In the 2000s refugees arrived in New Zealand from a number of African countries – Somalia and Ethiopia were among the top five source countries for refugees. Most had suffered great hardship. Faduma Moallin, chairperson of Wellington's Somali Council, described her community as 'confronting a myriad of challenges ... [the majority] lived nomadically in rural areas before the civil war, and often spent years in refugee camps'. (Annual Report, 2009–2010. Wellington: Wellington Somali Council Incorporated, p. 2)