Asylum seeker kids allowed to attend Catholic school

Sydney
1 Dec 2002

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Asylum seeker kids allowed to attend Catholic school

By Marilyn Rodrigues

Paul Delahunty, principal of St Barbara’s Catholic School in South Australia, has taken five special children under his wing.

But to the other pupils at St Barbara’s, in Roxby Downs, “they are just other kids”.

What makes the five children special is that they are from the Woomera Detention Centre.

They attend classes at St Barbara’s for two days a week.

After their first day, Mr Delahunty thanked the regular students for welcoming the newcomers and got blank looks and shrugs in return.

“They are just other kids to them,” he says.

The five Afghani and Iranian children, aged 6-11, are attending St Barbara’s for a trial period - two days each week until the end of the year, and then three weeks of first term next year.

It is the first time that children from the detention centre have been able to attend a local school, although classes are held in the centre.

And St Michael’s Parish, Woomera, has been lending its space for classes as well.

Mr Delahunty said that prayer, probably more than negotiation, brought the school’s wish into fruition.

“We’ve already had children from the centre visit the school on four or five occasions over the past two years on an excursion-type basis,” he said.

“We tried to see if it could happen on a more regular basis and this has just come to fruition in the past couple of weeks, through negotiating with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and Australian Correctional Management.

“We haven’t worried about who is going to pay (for them) at this stage,” he said.

“These kids have been in detention for at least 18 months, if not longer.

“We just wanted to get as many as we could out of the razor wire environment in the detention centre and into a more open environment as soon as possible.”

Mr Delahunty says most of the children who were in the Woomera Detention Centre have been transferred to the new Baxter Detention Centre at Port Augusta but that some remain.

The five attending the school were chosen as being more likely to settle in without any difficulties.

The school has the support of the Bishop of Port Pirie, Eugene Hurley, and the Catholic Education Office.

Bishop Hurley and Sr Catherine Mead RSJ, principal of Caritas College in Port Augusta, are also appealing to the government to allow children from the Baxter Detention Centre to attend the Port Augusta college.

In the meantime, all eyes will be on St Barbara’s, where a review next February will assess the trial period.

It will examine how the asylum seeker children have settled in, the affect on the full-time pupils and teachers, and any parental feedback, as well as what extra resources may be necessary and how they, and the extra children’s fees, might be funded.