Blog

This year the VDSA Lunch Project Group, nicknamed The Foodies, celebrates its 10^th birthday. The team includes approximately twenty people, and while there are members who had to leave because of life circumstances, the core of the group has remained untouched in time. Equally untouched has remained their generosity, enthusiasm, and steady collaboration in providing our monthly lunches for the clients of the ASC.

Notwithstanding also in 2022 COVID’s ongoing spectre has caused anxiety, and has required recurrent checking, revision of our schedule and some adjustments, we have managed to keep our commitment without cancelling any lunch.

Only on two occasions there was a variation in our usual routine of preparing food at home and then working at the ASC to organise the meal. In one case we prepared and delivered the full lunch menu but had to leave it at the desk for the ASC staff to take charge, and on another the VDSA offered $250 to the Centre to cover our scheduled lunch as we were unable to serve it in person.

In conclusion, and once more, the VDSA Lunch Group has been able to overcome obstacles, cope with the volatile situation created by the pandemic and fulfill our pledge, thus maintaining our successful cooperation with the ASC.

As mentioned, ten years have gone by since the Foodies began working on behalf of VDSA, and I feel deeply grateful to its members, past and present, for what we have managed to achieve together.

To The Foodies a heartfelt thank you!

Mariella Totaro-Genevois

Coordinator, VDSA Lunch Project ASC

By Charity Haynes

Visiting refugees in their homes has continued in 2021-2022 but we no longer visit the Villawood Detention Centre. Families have been helped in many ways, including rent assistance, paying for doctors bills & electricity accounts.

Highlights of visits include delicious lunches, seeing the progress of the children, several starting school for the first time & proudly showing us their school uniform & even reading us a story. For the families who moved recently to better accommodation, developments include setting up an online business to sell clothes imported from India and for another family a flourishing veggie garden, which shows how a better environment enables a more productive life. Another family, where both parents work, one of their sons has enrolled in an IT course at Macquarie University.

By contrast, those without visas cannot attend TAFE, & have no work rights. Even their children, who have attended High School here, and in one case gained an Arts Degree, are not allowed to work. The frustration caused by lack of visas leads to anxiety & many health problems.

The change of government had been a source of hope, but though there was the well publicised case of the Biloela family, the situation has worsened for others. Only last month a family was sent an ultimatum…accept an offer to go to New Zealand by 4 Oct. or return to your home country, in this case Iran. Only to be contacted a month later, after suffering a great deal of distress, to be told that the letter had been sent in error & has since been withdrawn by the Immigration Dept. Those refugees who have been in the community for over 10yrs, need safety & stability instead of living in fear. They really appreciate any support that we can give them.

VDSA has an invaluable role supporting refugees not just financially but also emotionally, such as when a mother was recently widowed, when her husband died of a heart attack, leaving her with a 6yr. old son. It is a privilege to be able to assist them, especially at such difficult times.

By Mariella Totaro-Genevois

In 2022 the VDSA Lunch Project Group for the ASC in Newtown will celebrate its 10th birthday, and notwithstanding the disruption and distress provoked by COVID-19, as I will illustrate later, there is definitely cause for being proud of its work and achievements during very difficult times.
So far, the VDSA Lunch Group has always succeeded in meeting the growing and quantitatively unpredictable demands of ASC lunch guests thanks to its unfailing and generous approach, and even during the COVID-19 new and volatile circumstances our team’s response has remained steady and productive:

1. Firstly, on three occasions the scheduled groups instead of our traditional monthly lunches, have delivered generous food and toiletries provisions to the ASC collection point. The shopping list, for a value of over $100 each time, had been compiled according to the instructions appearing on the ASC website.
2. Secondly, in March, April and May we have offered the usual lunches in Newtown, because at that stage we were allowed to do so.
3. Thirdly, when the late June NSW lockdown blocked again our cooperation with the ASC, our resourceful President, Vittoria, asked me to write a letter to the VDSA Membership with the aim of raising funds. If successful these funds would allow us to purchase food-vouchers for as many as possible refugees and asylum seekers, whose situation had become even more critical due to the prolonged lockdown.
   The response of VDSA members and friends to this appeal was astounding, in a few weeks $12,180 were received. This unexpected, substantial result has allowed VDSA not only to strengthen its assistance program for existing beneficiaries such as the ASC, but also to include a larger number of their clients who were reached directly and independently by our association.
   Finally, as the restrictions relating to COVID 19 are gradually easing, our commitment to provide regular monthly lunches for the clients of the ASC has already resumed since February, and the first face to face lunch took place on March 17. The ASC Staff really looks forward to our physical return to their premises, and our teams are equally keen to resume and continue our ‘nourishing’ collaboration with them

Visiting refugees has continued this past year despite the Omicron variant of Covid being present. The first event in 2021 was a picnic for a group living in the Auburn area, which was dominated by the youngest taking his first steps! A feature of our visits is seeing the progress of the children and the pleasure that a small gift like a book can give, plus the enormous help it is for parents to receive nappies, formula & other essentials, even a pram and school uniform as the children grow up.
A feature of last year has been the relocation of several families to new ac-commodation. This has often meant extra expenses, such as help with the bond or the need of a vacuum cleaner, since the new house has a carpet! One refugee has progressed from living in a garage, to a women’s shelter, to finally renting an apartment. Her joy has been overwhelming! Other activi-ties this year have ranged from help with translation of court documents into English, payment of car registration and TAFE fees. Nathan, who wrote a letter to us last year, has just completed a car mechanics course at TAFE and now has full time work spray painting cars. He has recently been able to move from a tiny upstairs apartment to a ground floor one with a garden and is close to a park. This has greatly benefited his wife and their two-year-old daughter.
We are still unable to visit Villawood Detention Centre, for fear of spreading Covid. This has been extremely disappointing, since a lot of the refugees have been there for many years. Phone recharge vouchers have been a great way to enable them to keep in touch with their families, lawyers, etc. One has a five-year-old son, who was only two months old when he was detained. He is very upset that his son doesn’t call him daddy but only uses his given name. He has won his court case but has not been released….no ex-planation given. Others, after ten years in detention, have been returned to their country of origin.
VDSA has an important role in supporting refugees and asylum seekers not just financially but emotionally, such as when they have accidents here or are going through difficult times, or when tragedies happen to close family members that they have left behind in their country of origin