Valla Beach Market Stall - Sat 4th Feb
Fire at Sea - Film showing
Meeting with Luke Hartsuyker MP
What people are saying about government policy
Crowd funding project to help refugees
Bellingen market report
Our market in Bellingen on Saturday went really well. The threatened rain didn’t materialise, the crowds arrived and we collected about 100 signatures on our new national RAR petition, which was a great result. A big thank you to our supporters who turned up to lend a hand. We also did a brisk trade in our Boat People merchandise – could that be related to a recent promotional video, we wonder? As usual, lots of people expressed their dismay at the ongoing cruelty of our government’s asylum policy and were very supportive of our efforts to expose the facts about the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus and Nauru. Let’s not forget that the supreme court of PNG ruled last April that the Manus detention centre was illegal and must be closed, and yet to date nothing has changed.
Our next market will be at Valla Beach on Saturday 4th February. Please put the date in your diary and if you can help for an hour or two, please email us at:bellingen.rar@gmail.com. We would greatly value help between 9.00 am and 1.30 pm.
Fire at Sea: a documentary by Gianfranco Rosi. Jetty Theatre, Friday 27th January at 4.30 pm
In 2015 the renowned documentary film maker Gianfranco Rosi spent several months on the Italian island of Lampedusa documenting the arrival of thousands of refugees who had made the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean sea to flee from persecution and starvation in their home countries. The resulting film is an on-the-spot, humane and timely survey of Europe’s refugee crisis. It has won the Golden Bear Prize for best film, the Amnesty International Film Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin Film Festival. It is described as “Essential viewing for all Australians”. Tickets are $16 full price and $13 concessions. You can book your tickets on line, or pay at the door.
Meeting with Luke Hartsuyker MP.
We have finally secured a meeting with our local Federal member of parliament to present our petition and to discuss the Coalition’s asylum policy. The meeting will be today, Tuesday 24th January at 4.00 pm. Mr Hartsuyker has agreed to meet with a delegation of three RAR members: Sue Kitson, Peter Sobey and Mike Griffin. Our focus will be on the cruelty and inhumanity of the treatment of asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru and on the Australian government’s complete disregard for international law. We will report back to you in next week’s newsletter.
What people are saying about the government’s policy
“If the protecting of our borders requires the incarceration of babies, the sexual abuse of children, the rape of women and the murder of men, then we are of all nations the most deprived”. Father Rod Bower. Gosford Anglican Parish Church.
“If we take the definition of torture to be the deliberate harming of people in order to coerce them into a desired outcome, I think it (the detention regime) does fill that definition”. Dr Peter Young.
“Medical professionals argue that the detention centres are “designed to damage” people, and that the illnesses, injuries, and deaths are the predictable, expected outcomes of the regime”. Amnesty International. October 2016.
Crowd funding project to help refugees
Hi and thank you for taking the time to firstly read this email and, second, to hopefully to open the attached link, and have a look at what I am trying to achieve.
What started out as a simple conversation with Cheryl Nolan who runs North Coast Settlement Services in Coffs Harbour, quickly blossomed into an idea of what can be an easy and practical solution to a complex problem while building on life skills and developing autonomy for Refugees in the Coffs Harbour region.
I was speaking with Cheryl as part of an assignment I was doing for studies in Community Services and she talked about the how time management and getting to appointments is a major issue for newly arrived Refugees in Coffs Harbour. As and example, not attending Centrelink appointments for set meetings frequently results in payments being cut off. Attending courses, legal and other meetings and medical appointments all fill the days of new arrivals. Understanding and dealing with the complexities of the requirements placed upon them is fraught with the difficulties of English as a second, third or even fourth language; previous, very negative experiences of government officials; and coping with the overall experiences of being a refugee newly arrived in Australia.
With all this in mind, Cheryl and I talked about creating diaries that can be used to build individual autonomy within the community through developing time management skills as well as providing a resource for contact information, relevant community services, health services, support groups along with basic translations in all relevant languages.
To this end, I am now passing on to you a link to "Chuffed" - a crowd funding site, with the aim of raising the $3500 to pay for 500 diaries to be distributed free of charge to clients of North Coast Settlement Services, and STARTTS (Service for the Treatment And Rehabilitation of Trauma and Torture Survivors).
Your generous donation to this project would be greatly appreciated. If you are comfortable to do so would you please forward this link to friends and family.
Kind regards
Rowena McGregor
Rowena McGregor
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