Our visits to the Villawood Immigration Detention Facility (as it is now called) continue as in past years. There have been disconcerting moments when some of those we visited were moved overnight to other parts of the country (such as Yongah Hill, Perth, from Blaxland to Christmas Island and from Blaxland, to a correctional centre in Brisbane to await trial). Whenever possible, we try to stay in contact with these distant friends, sending items not otherwise available as well as financial support to enable them to purchase necessities.   Funds from the Association were combined with very generous donations from two of our members and from FILEF to enable one of our Afghani friends to win his appeal in June against the Immigration Department’s denial of refugee status. Notwithstanding this win, the Department has still not released him, despite the fact that he has served almost 7 years in detention.

 

There have also been moments of relief and pleasure when detainees are finally released. Recently, some of us attended a colourful and joyful Tamil wedding.

 

There have been a number of new people interested in visiting Villawood and some have become part of our group.  We welcome them warmly. As mentioned, there are detainees now in their 7th year of detention – for such detainees in particular, the support we can bring together with our solidarity and encouragement is important in combatting despair and a sense of hopelessness but this is hard when they are shifted to remote centres such as Darwin. We also try to support as far as possible  those who have been released into the community.   Visiting VIDF is both time-consuming and demanding and we are always grateful for more volunteers.  One of our aims for 2016 is to put together a dossier of useful information to give detainees when they are released.