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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.

Our Group was born in 2013, and since then it has provided regular monthly hot lunches for the Clients of the ASC in Newtown. Flexible in its structure, efficient and generous the group is by now well-known and well-loved both by the Staff of the ASC but most importantly by its growing number of its Clients.

The roster of the VDSA lunches is arranged on the basis of the calendar provided by the ASC. Trying to match dates with our volunteers’ availability implies quite a bit of juggling and a certain amount of shameless persistence. Thus, my apologies go to all those who get bombarded by my emails, reminders, memos etc etc

In 2018 as in previous years the VDSA Lunch Project Group has coped with the unpredictable number of ASC lunch participants by being extremely generous when calculating the quantities of food provided for each meal. In particular we have all remarked how fruit is so much in demand that regardless of how plentiful our baskets are they get emptied at the speed of light. Needless to say that in no occasion leftovers – if any – go wasted: they are carefully packed and happily travel to the homes of the ASC clients.

Since 2017 a refund of $100 per lunch can been claimed by keeping the dockets for Robbie Woolf, Association Secretary; however, to my knowledge this specific arrangement hasn’t been taken up yet, so I seize this opportunity to remind of its existence all those who might be interested.

One more practical note: since 2016 the VDSA Lunch teams can ask for a volunteer of the ASC to give a hand in the kitchen at whatever stage of our lunch we might need it, it is just enough to let the people at the desk know on arrival. This stipulation allows our members to be a bit more relaxed and manage some valuable interaction with the Clients during their meal.

Finally, but most importantly I wish to express my deep gratitude to each member of our Lunch Group for their unfailing dedication and generosity, with an additional heart-felt thank you to all those who contribute more than one lunch per year.

– Mariella Totaro Genevois

Coordinator, VDSA Lunch Project ACS

The Refugee Group is now focussed on three different areas – firstly, the Villawood detention centre, secondly, Miowera Village adjacent to the detention centre but no longer enclosed and thirdly, ex-detainees now living in the community.

Immigration is making it increasingly difficult to visit the detention centre as soon it will be necessary to apply 5 days beforehand, provide 100 identity points and at least in theory, see one person only.

Miowera Village, that houses mainly mothers and children, is now open but those who live there still have significant problems, both financial and existential. In this village, we are focussing on an Iranian mother and her young adult children (22 and 24) all of whom have mental health issues after 4 years on Nauru. The son was sent to the detention centre with no explanation given. Their severe depression has made it hard for the children to leave their rooms, except for treatment. Some of our members also visit a young Somalian mother, and her baby girl. The mother is separated from her husband who is still held on Nauru and who has never seen his baby daughter, now 9 months old.

In the community, we are providing relief from poverty, distress and misfortune experienced by a widowed Sri Lankan mother who is a refugee with glaucoma who had many unpaid bills including medical bills. We are also providing relief to a Mexican human rights journalist who was tortured in Mexico for his politics and who recently found himself with $20 per week to live on after paying his rent. We are also assisting a Rohingyan ex-detainee in Adelaide who must leave Australia in 4 months as he was once on Nauru. He, like others from Nauru, was brought here for medical reasons. With a 4-month visa, it is very difficult to find work and he receives no Centrelink payments. Some of us make social visits to ex-detainees and one of our members organizes an annual lunch or outing for our Tamil friends who are now free.

Thus, our funds have been mainly used for living expenses, telephone calls, driving tests, medical expenses and the partial cost of an ambulance.

A number of refugees attended the recent fund-raising evening held by the Association bringing generous quantities of delicious ethnic food enjoyed by all.

So, all in all, we are still assisting asylum seekers and refugees working towards relieving their poverty, distress and misfortune and lending a hand when we can. We always welcome new members and we thank all present members for their time, efforts and compassion.

The VDSA lunch group programme is now five years old, and in 2017 the activity has continued in the format of a flexible number of people working in teams of three. We prepare and serve a monthly, generous hot lunch for refugees and asylum seekers who are clients of the Asylum Seekers’ Centre. Meals are cooked according to hygiene and cultural requirements. The group is very keen to welcome new participants.
During the last five years the number of lunch clients has remained unpredictable – thirty in average, rarely less and sometimes up to fifty. In order not to disappoint anybody our teams calculate food quantities generously. Leftovers are taken home by the refugees and asylum seekers who are very appreciative of our regular and much enjoyed lunches.

For more information on the program see the program page here.

On Friday 26 May, 2017, a FILEF (Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and their families) meeting was held at the Italian Forum Cultural Centre in Leichardt, Sydney to discuss how refugees seeking asylum in Australia could be supported. NGOs including Amnesty International, Asylum Seeker Centre, Refugee Action Coalition, Valerio Daniel De Simoni Association, People Just Like Us, Mums 4 Refugees, OneStep and Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children were in attendance.

This 5th year of activity has seen a drop-off in the number of detainees visited, as some were finally released, after 5 or even 6 years in detention. Contact has continued with some of these, especially with our Sri Lankan friends. Some financial assistance has been given to those now in the community to alleviate poverty, misfortune and distress including after the birth of a baby and during illness resulting in onerous medical bills. Some members now prefer to visit released detainees who have become friends after years of visiting. There have been social activities with ex-detainees such as attending weddings and christenings, restaurant outings, visits to the zoo or tours of Sydney. We feel maintaining our special friendships with ex-detainees, when possible, is important.

Some assistance was given to a now ex-detainee in jail who was very grateful for this help, as he had no family here. He was found not guilty but in the meantime spent two months in jail and two years in detention. Help was also given to another detainee who emerged from detention after seven years.

Friends of members have donated items of furniture. Donations are occasionally received for specific purposes. These are a help as our monthly funds only just cover outlays.

Our primary activity, however, remains support for those in detention Including spending time with them in an effort to relieve their distress and helplessness. A valuable new member has recently joined our group and has become a regular visitor. Right now, we are trying to give extra support to a detainee who recently attempted suicide, oppressed by detention and the killings in his homeland where his family resides. New members are always welcome!