A PLEA FROM OUR NATIONAL RAR COMMITTEE

 Dear RAR group convenors

WE NEED YOU!

I would like to invite your group to nominate someone to become a valued part of the RAR National Committee. Our current Committee is struggling to match personal commitments with RAR responsibilities and want more volunteers to share the load.

Being a member of our National Committee is an important way to contribute to RAR’s impact and to be part of a nationally coordinated response to the challenges refugees and asylum seekers face in 2021 and beyond.

This year has started on a positive note, with the release of some Medevac refugees from detention.  RAR groups have helped coordinate efforts to support these men, find them jobs and accommodation in our communities and raise money for relocation.

In December, our members posted hundreds of #HomeToBilo Christmas cards and postcards to our politicians. We posted human rights videos on social media and our website. Now we are starting to plan for Palm Sunday rallies across the country. We continue to lobby for the Biloela family to go home and have permanent residence there, as they approach three years in detention on 5 March.

These are just some examples of what we can do when we work together. We have a strong reputation

because of the work you, our member groups, do across the country. Yet our greatest impact comes from being able to work and act together. The RAR National Committee pulls our independent groups together to provide a strong united voice and influence the national political agenda.

Opportunities on the RAR National Committee exist for the following roles:

·       Vice-President

·       Treasurer

·       Communications Convenor, to manage social media activities (supported by several people who do regular posts)

·       Committee members,

We’re also calling out for members of the proposed Training Fund sub-committee.

I call on you to please consider joining the National Committee in one of these roles. We meet monthly via Zoom. I recognise the work you do in your own local groups is an important commitment, but so is being part of RAR’s National Committee - all national committee members are also actively involved in our own local groups.

Please consider being part of our national movement and please table this letter at your next meeting to offer others the opportunity to step up and join the National Committee. Anyone who is a member of a RAR group is eligible to be nominated by their group to fill a casual vacancy.  Please call me if you would like to discuss this, or other ways you could contribute.

Stepping up to support RAR in this way is a small commitment of your time that goes a long way to supporting RAR and realising our goals for the just and humane treatment of people seeking refuge and asylum in this country.

I look forward to welcoming your nominee for the National Committee in 2021.

Louise

Rural Australians for Refugees on Twitter and Facebook 

RAR is a member of the Australian Refugee Action Network