ST. CLOUD -- An Australian woman is traveling the globe to see how other countries and communities are building a welcoming community for refugees.

A small community meeting was held Wednesday morning to talk about the work organizations like #unitecloud and Lutheran Social Services have been doing across central Minnesota when it comes to refugee attraction and retention.

Talia Stump is the Senior Policy Officer at Multicultural NSW in New South Wales, Australia. She says she's been leading a government project which aims to support secondary migration for refugees, and heard about St. Cloud's community-led approaches in supporting refugees.

When I read about the unique situation facing St. Cloud, I felt like I had to visit here and find out in person what was going on and what was working well.

Stump has spend over 10 years working with refugee seeking communities in Australia on how to bring refugees into regional and rural towns. She says there is two focuses to her research she's collecting.

We're looking design a policy to attract, welcome and retain refugees. On the other hand I'm looking for personal stories from community members here that I can take back to Australia and share with other people I'm in contact with who want to be involved.

She says she will incorporate her findings from her travels across the globe into a report the will be shared across Australia.

Besides St. Cloud Stump will also visit Germany, Norway and Sweden.

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