To celebrate the Best Practice winners 2010 – 2011, we will be
running a special series of Best Practice blogs over the coming days.
These articles are written by the clubs themselves, and in many cases
will appear in English and the language of the club. We hope you enjoy
learning about the 2010 – 2011 Best Practice projects and take away
ideas and inspiration for the future!
Programme Focus Objective: Ensure equal access to education and training for women and girls throughout their lifespan.
Our club was
honoured to receive the Best Practice Award for our project working with
migrant and refugee families who continue arrive in Townsville in a steady
stream. We are especially delighted because this award was communicated just in
time to be received by our very valued member who helped initiate and who drove
the project in the time up to the award. Our member, Beth Bennett, pictured in
the article in the first Global Impact Report 2010 died of Cystic Fibrosis in June 2011. Beth was the oldest surviving
sufferer in Australia and her positive attitude to life and
determination to make the most of her remaining time were an inspiration to us
all.
The project began
about three years ago when we realized that Townsville was rapidly becoming a Refugee Welcome City . Our first event
was a picnic in our Soroptimist Park for families where we met with them and
looked for ways where we could assist. We located the Townsville Multicultural
Support Group who are based in a disused
Sister of St Joseph Convent and who for many years have had the government charter
to support and re-settle refugee families in the Townsville community. In
addition to this they have accessed many grants to allow them to work with
migrant families and also refugees who need support after the statutory six
months refugee status. The office staff
and placement officers play an important
role which is far and above the call of duty. We have entered into a
partnership with them where we work in a variety of scenarios This has meant our members obtaining Police
Blue Cards to work with children and signing an agreement to abide by the
necessary conditions.
Our city had seen
an ever increasing influx of refugees. Some years ago this was largely
Sudanese, but then in 2008/9 it became families from Somalia who had been in camps in Ethiopia or Kenya and Burmese who were usually from the
Karen tribes. These families had been held in camps on the Thai/Burmese border
for many years and where in fact stateless. Now in mid-2011 we are seeing an influx of
Bhutanese who sought refuge in India and are now being relocated.
These refugee
families are all entitled to 500 hours of English Language provided by the
Australian Government through the Technical and Further Education system. These
classes occur on Tues/Wed and Thurs and finish to allow school pick-up.
Theoretically those with pre-school age children are eligible for these classes
but after often 17 years in refugee camps they are reluctant to place their
babies in the care of unknown people and so they miss out. These classes are
fairly formal and many new arrivals have problems keeping up. Thus our need to
work in one-to-one support for language.
Where do we fit
in? The only answer is in a vast number of ways. Some of our members adopt a
family, largely through the mother and go to their homes once a week to
provide, not only further assistance with basic English, but more often an
interpretation of some of the challenges and pitfalls of their new home. Formal
English tuition is vital, but the challenge is how to use it in the
Supermarket, which vegetables to buy (many of these are quite unfamiliar to
their camp experience. How to cope with a huge range of cuts of meat from a
variety of animals and is it important they are slaughtered under halal
methods?
Other members
take English classes for groups on a Friday when many women come for an English
class but perhaps more importantly for the social interaction.
These classes are
an exciting movable feast. You arrive expecting five Karen women and find
instead you have seven Somali women with little or no English. No matter what
we still have fun and fellowship.
Members take the
women shopping at the supermarket. Apart learning what these elaborately packaged goods
are when the goods come home, how should they be cooked. Our members have
bought cake tins and showed the women how to bake cakes, They have provided and
shown the women how to use many different
appliances.
This is an
ever-growing project with several branches. Women need help to use ATM
machines,(this is where they can access their Government welfare payments) They
need to know where to buy clothes at a reasonable price and if there is the
possibility of a car they need someone to sit beside them while they build up
their required practice hours. Of course culturally it is usually the men or
the eldest son who need this support unless the woman is a sole parent.
We try to be
available to fill gaps where needed. These have included taking a child who had
broken his leg to and from school so his Mother could go to English classes,
transporting a young Mother to and from the hospital to feed her premature baby
at the week-end when there were no busses and a myriad of other support
activities.
Members have
sourced furniture, rugs, furnishings, toys, clothing and other materials to help furnish their homes and
entertain their children. We have joined the local toy library so we can borrow
toys for use by newly arrived families. This is not simple because the
families, having had so little for so many years are frightened to let the
children use things in case they are broken. (We simply have to learn to
understand how we would feel if we had spent seventeen years in a refugee camp
living with no possessions.)
The project has a
long way to go and we are constantly learning. Something new comes up every
week. However we maintain a flexible attitude and try to establish new
directions and to support a range of initiatives. While we have the resources
to search out many of the material resources such as carpets , curtains,
appliances, furniture that are needed to support these families we see this
benevolence as secondary to our prime purpose of working with the women and
children to help them to adjust better to life in Townsville.
We are gearing up
on the 30th October for Beth’s Picnic where we will take Refugee
Families to join with our members and the Girl Guide Companies with whom we
work closely to give the refugee children a Sunday afternoon picnic in memory
of our Beth.
Judy
Hunter.
President
SI Townsville, Australia
Read a follow up story about "Beth’s Picnic’ by clicking here.