How to help the refugees

The
Catholic Weekly
Online

Sydney
7 December 2003

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How to help the refugees

REFUGEES Sylvia Winton

By Chris Lindsay

“If you want to help our refugees, buy a travel pass or phone card and send it in. Toiletries, such as a packet of razors, some soap and toothpaste, even washing detergent are all needed,” says Sylvia Winton, co-ordinator of the Asylum Seekers Centre in Surry Hills.

“These people’s needs are very basic. Many of them have nothing. If someone sends us food we will put it on the table and it will soon be gone. These people have to feed their children.

“Send us good quality clothes, these people have no money to buy them.

“If you are a professional person, a doctor, dentist or a lawyer, see someone on a pro bono basis.

“Some people are very generous. Last year a man agreed to pay living expenses for a family for a year.”

Sylvia says the Federal Government seems bewilderingly indifferent to the fate of the refugees.

“Without assistance from the community they would starve,” she says.

“The Government won’t let them work and won’t give them anything. They are tossed out into society with only charities to help them.

“Those on bridging visas are not given permission to work and they get no assistance from the government; only those on temporary protection visas get some assistance from Centrelink.

“You wonder why the system makes them suffer so much. Why not at least give them the chance to work for their living?”

The Asylum Seekers Centre, which was established by Catholic organisations such as the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Mercy Foundation and the Jesuits, has for 10 years been looking after the “huddled masses” of the world who seek sanctuary in Australia.

It provides refugees with English lessons, health care, legal referrals and job search skills as well as helping them to simply exist in society. It gets no government assistance at all to do this work.

Sylvia, a social worker with an interest in asylum seekers (she worked with refugee women for a year), says 15-20 people seek support at the centre each day.

“Most come for the English lessons and health care or follow up on welfare issues,” she says.

“Currently we have a man who is about to lose his accommodation. He is being looked after by total strangers who have taken him in. He cannot even pay for his food or travel.

“But they have told us that the situation must come to an end soon.

“We will have to find him somewhere else to live.”

Sylvia says many asylum seekers run out of money soon after they arrive here.

“They may have had a little money in their old countries, but taking it all out of the bank would have drawn attention to the fact that they were going to flee,” she says.

People seeking refugee status must “go to the Immigration Department within 45 days of arriving” or they will not get a visa to work, she adds. “Many of them do not know this and, if they have any kind of visa, tend to wait until it has expired before they apply for refugee status.” By then it is too late.

The centre is helping families with young children “with no income whatever”, says Sylvia. “They cannot pay rent, feed their children, send them to school. “Sometimes they are in tears worrying about the future.

“If they break the law and get a job they are put in detention centres; and if they succumb to despair and decide to go home they cannot afford the fare.”

The centre has helped 3000 people in its 10 years; if you can help, call Sylvia Winton on (02) 9361 5606.