When Yarrie Bangura was researching how to build her grassroots ginger tonic business, she turned to an online search engine. “Black business women,” she typed; “brown-skinned women doing business.”

Bangura, a refugee from war-torn Sierra Leone who arrived in Australia with her family 15 years ago, needed to know others had succeeded before her.

“I had no self-esteem,” recalls the 30-something-year-old. “I was fearful because I was scared that I am dreaming too big and I am stepping beyond my boundary.”

On the streets of Sydney, people would yell at her to “go back to your country”, adding to her apprehension. But then Bangura – bright, bubbly and studying a bachelor degree in international development – teamed up with Ignite Small Business Start-ups, an initiative that helps refugees find their feet.

On Saturday at the New Beginnings festival in Sydney’s Darling Harbour – which showcases music, craft and food from those with refugee and migrant backgrounds – Bangura served a steady stream of customers her ice-cold Aunty’s Ginger Tonic.

The Australian ingredients – including ginger, tamarind and lemon – were inspired by her grandmother’s garden in Sierra Leone. Ignite helped her move from a tiny business – cooking the recipe herself over a stove – to a commercial operation. The tonic is now sold online, in health food shops and cafes.

“I wanted to bring something from my grandmother’s backyard,” she says. “I wanted to give back to the country that had given me another chance in life.”

With no social capital, no connections and often limited language skills, refugees typically find themselves shut out of traditional employment.

Ignite – which is funded by the non-profit refugee organisation Settlement Services International, which hosted the festival – aims to help refugees bypass a system stacked against them. One 2017 SSI report, put together by Prof Jock Collins from the University of Technology Sydney business school, found that it was good for government, too. According to the report, savings on Centrelink payments added up to $880,000 a year (or $4.4m over five years) because of successful startups.

At New Beginnings that success is in full swing. Food stalls including Syrian Kitchen, another Ignite business, serve up a series of delicacies from mezza to Ethiopian stew. Bands play on stage. Punters dance. And families from all walks of life gather together, sheltering in the shade.

Iraqi-born Bashar Hanna, who arrived in Australia in 1998, founded the Mesopotamian Ensemble in 2016 with the goal of both bringing Middle Eastern folk to Australia and giving a platform to musicians (five out of the seven members came here as refugees).

“We noticed that professional musicians coming from refugee backgrounds – there are no production companies that can open the doors for them,” says Hanna, speaking backstage. “Iraqi people have a treasure trove of musicians and performers but not everybody knows about them yet … [This helps them] start their own career [in Australia].”

Performing in the Tumbalong Park, in the middle of Sydney, to an audience of all ages and nationalities “will increase their sense of belonging in Australia. Because you are accepted for a talent,” he says.

A Syrian singer and oud player, George Karam, known in Arabic music circles as the Assyrian King, has found in music his own path to integration.

Karam fled Syria for Lebanon in 2012 with his wife and two daughters. “But there were no opportunities,” he says, as his daughter, Atra Karam, a student at the University of Western Sydney, translates. “All the hard work that I [did] in Syria just vanished – there was nothing for us there.”

After moving the family to Australia last year (his other daughter is still waiting for her papers in Lebanon), Karam now appreciates the small things. That he can teach music, that he can play here. Speaking above the beat of drums next door, he says: “As the name of the festival New Beginnings says – that’s a new beginning for me in Australia.”

His daughter puts it another way. “I prefer it here,” she says, with an infectious smile. “It’s more open and safe and not closed, culturally. At least there is no war here.”