In the last year, we’ve continued our support for Villawood detention centre detainees, ex-detainees now in the community, and detainees’ families living at Miowera Village. Using our precious funds, we have supplied phone cards, groceries, second-hand books and toys, baby items and the occasional gift card to refugees and asylum seekers to relieve their distress, misfortune and poverty. We have made contributions to overdue power bills, dental bills, electrical repair bills, car registration and legal bills (relating to the endeavour of avoiding being sent back to danger). We have given assistance and provided relief when ex-detainees suddenly found themselves in distress, deprived of accommodation and without the right to claim Centrelink payments. We purchased a laptop required at school by the child of a single mother. There are many who face financial stress so the $500 donation in June this year from our sister organization, FILEF, made it easier for us in ensuing months to extend assistance to those most in need.

Volunteers visit a number of people at Villawood and in the community. One volunteer accompanied a couple of Sri Lankan boys to Sealife Aquarium during the school holidays. Vittoria has developed a relationship with a young Somalian mother who now lives in the community and whom she regularly visits with another volunteer and whom the association assists and whose poverty and distress we relieve. Other volunteers keep in contact with Sri Lankan refugees now living in the community. We provide relief from poverty and distress. Another volunteer has given a lot of support to a refugee in the community who has been very distressed.

We are currently organizing a long weekend in a country location for a couple of Kurdish friends with an organization called HOME AMONG THE GUMTREES NSW – a rural association that offers generous hospitality to asylum seekers. Some of our friends have already been on three-day Gumtree holidays with very positive results. We have regular contact with ex-detainees, inviting them for lunch or dinner or being invited by them. It means the ties formed while they were detainees remain intact. Many enjoy attending the annual picnic. It is heart-warming to receive Christmas greetings from old friends and even the occasional Mother’s Day card! One ex-detainee has been waiting for Nicoletta’s return from Italy to celebrate with us his recent marriage.

Some of those we helped through difficult times have since found work, once their visas was renewed. Others have gained some financial relief when bills were burdensome. Our ex-detainee friends are surviving, despite often enduring tough work conditions and unfair rates of pay. This will endure until they achieve Permanent Residency, increasingly unlikely under the present government. Some endure the anguish of families exposed to great danger in their homelands and in these cases, we try at least to be supportive. All those whom we’ve helped are doing their best to improve their level of integration, either working, doing TAFE courses in areas such as aged care or English courses, squeezed into tiring days of work or childcare. We feel it’s been a productive year. Thank you to all for your continuing interest and commitment.