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Charism inspires a heart and mind of compassion
A conversation with Dr Maryanne Loughry rsm, champion of the displaced
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Printable version |
| By Sharyn McCowen
18 July, 2010 |
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| HONOURED: Sr Maryanne ... “advocating for refugees and the displaced
is important in the Catholic Church’s life and critical at this time.” |
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SR MARYANNE is a Sister of Mercy and psychologist with a heart for displaced people.
The Adelaide-born Mercy Sister was named a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s
Birthday honours last month for her decades of service to migrants and refugees.
“Many religious have congratulated me on receiving this award because they recognise that
advocating for refugees and the displaced is important in the Catholic Church’s life and critical at this time,” she says.
And it all started with her family.
“My family made a lot of sacrifices to put my brothers and sisters through a Catholic schooling and our active participation in parish life was very much a part of our daily life,” says Sr Maryanne.
“My father was a committed St Vincent de Paul Society member so we were also very aware of the importance of helping those who were in need for whatever reason.”
This example at home, coupled with seeing Sisters living the Mercy charism each day, had a great impression on her as a young woman.
“I was taught through all of my schooling with the Sisters of Mercy and became very impressed with their dedication to their teaching and concern for the families of
those that they taught,” she recalls.
Another attraction for Sr Maryanne was the Mercy Sisters’ commitment to justice.
“The ‘70s was the time of the Vietnam war protests and a sense of us all having an international role to play in making the world a better place,” she says.
“They very much encouraged their students to be aware of this and to make a difference in our world.
“In the early ‘70s the Sisters started doing different ministries with marginalised populations.
One that impressed me greatly was when they moved to work in adult education at Port Augusta with the Aboriginal population.
“This was a new ministry for the Adelaide Sisters of Mercy but they embraced it with
great enthusiasm and skill.”
Sr Maryanne joined the Mercy Sisters in 1974, and quickly gained experience and insight into Australia’s internally displaced people.
“When I joined the Sisters they set me on a formation program that included working in Redfern with Fr Ted Kennedy and Mum Shirl, in Western Australia and South Australia with urban Aboriginal people, many who would describe themselves as displaced.”
She later attended a workshop on structural analysis of poverty with Bishop Claver in the
Philippines, during “the Marcos era”.
“On the day I arrived in the Philippines I was sent to live in a rural setting for a week with a poor farming family,” she says.
“In the following weeks I was introduced to how to analyse why the poor were poor in a country like the Philippines and what were to be the consequences of this poverty, locally and globally.”
Sr Maryanne says this exposure and training laid a strong foundation for her future work,
“In the mid 1980s I then had an opportunity to attend a Jesuit Refugee Service meeting in
Thailand.
“It was the time of very large numbers of Indochinese refugees and I went to the refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodia border.
“I was very moved by the plight of these refugees and of the work being done by many
working in the camps.”
In 1988 Sr Maryanne was completing her studies as a psychologist while working in the
Philippines, in a refugee camp in Bataan for a mental health agency.
“This was the beginning of my work overseas in this area,” she says.
“After Bataan, I continued in my job as a lecturer at Flinders University, South Australia but at every opportunity took leave to work overseas. This resulted in my being in the Vietnamese detention centres in Hong Kong for three years as a counsellor, and then head of a training and research unit.
“I then started working in Vietnam, training the Vietnamese Government in child protection
issues as the children from the detention centres were being returned to Vietnam.”
She used the time in Vietnam to research the effects of detention on children up to three years after their return to Vietnam, and used the information for her doctorate.
“After working in Vietnam I returned to Flinders University and through the university I started teaching courses in Gaza and the West Bank,” she said.
“From here I moved in 1997 to be the Pedro Arrupe Tutor in Refugee Studies at the University of Oxford.”
For seven years she lived in Oxford and taught a Masters degree in Forced Migration, while
researching the psychosocial effects of conflict and displacement in countries including the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, East Timor, and Afghanistan.
Her interest in psychology also dates back to a young age.
“At university I found myself more and more interested in my psychology topics and I actually enjoyed the statistics and research methods so I found myself majoring in psychology.
“Once I had one degree I moved to become registered as a practicing psychologist which
necessitated further degrees.
“My teaching in universities necessitated a doctoral degree so I pursued each of these degrees while working in different settings.”
Sr Maryanne is associate director the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), which was established a year before the Sisters founded the Mercy Refugee Service. JRS is an international organisation with offices in Geneva, Washington, Rome and Bangkok.
“We have always worked in partnership with the Jesuits and other religious and lay people,” she says.
“In JRS we are guided by three principles: to accompany, to serve and to plead the cause of refugees.
“By this we mean that we are on the ground with the refugees, we come to know them as people with names and stories.
“In different settings we run services for refugees, in Sydney we have a project that shelters asylum seekers who have arrived in Australia on visas, mainly by plane,
who have then sought refugee status.”
They also “plead the cause”, advocating for refugees.
“This is where a lot of my work happens where through my research or teaching I come to know the situation of the refugees and then I use this information to speak out about the needs of these people.” She also deals with ever-changing policies and rulings on immigration and asylum.
“The most challenging part of my work is the complexity of my work and the changing political reality at the Australian and international level,” she says.
“I am also challenged by the poverty and despair that I see in many war torn countries.
“On the other side of this I see remarkably resilient individuals and families who are making the best of their situations in spite of the frequent failure of the international
community to adequately assist them.”
While many Australians base their view on immigration on misinformation, Sr Maryanne is overwhelmingly informed, armed with real stories, knowledge of the psychological impact of life as a refugee, and an understanding of Australia’s international obligations
to refugees, beyond party politics.
“I am very aware that our policies are shaped by public opinion and that many Australians are not familiar with Australia’s international obligations, our regional setting with
many of our neighbours being non signatories to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, and the fact that many people who make it to Australia have genuine fears of persecution in their
own country.
“Having worked in detention centres I know too well the effects of detention and uncertainty on people’s lives, especially people who have suffered in their own countries and on route to Australia.”
Her ideal policy for processing refugees?
“I would like us to permit people to have their refugee status determined in parts of Australia that have resources and access to legal assistance so that individual claims
can be heard in good time.
“I would also like Australians to recognise that people asking Australia for protection are not to be feared.”
Sr Maryanne says the stories of refugees stay with her from every refugee crisis she has worked on.
“I do remember stories and images from each country. I am frequently in a very privileged setting where I am witnessing a lot of suffering or quiet despair.
“That stays with me and strengthens my resolve to work in this area for a better response.”
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