By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
GENEROUS acts are being performed for asylum seekers on a daily basis by full-time volunteers like Friends of Refugees member Sri Samy.
The group has collected bikes for children at Christmas, set up a men’s woodwork shop, women’s support groups, English and work skills classes, children’s homework tuition and pitched in with food, beds, fridges and other necessities to relieve the desperate poverty among Greater Dandenong’s asylum seekers.
At its height, Ms Samy hardly took a day off. She has been a nurse and source of counsel for the mentally stressed and a saviour for the hungry for up to 50 hours a week.
She said many were ashamed to ask for help. One day, she asked a household of two newly-released families, each with several kids, what they needed. They said they wanted mattresses and kitchen utensils.
“I noticed they didn’t have anything to eat. They reluctantly said ‘we desperately need food.’
“They had just been released from the detention centres and had nothing.”
After buying them vegetables and other foods, Ms Samy told them: “We will give you everything we can.”
For 45 days, she cooked for a hospitalised woman who had exotic dietary needs because there was no-one else.
“It has been emotionally draining. It’s personally taken a lot of toll on me – just moving from one thing to the other.”
Ms Sami says “things have calmed down” since last year when agencies Red Cross and AMES were struggling to help exponentially swelling numbers of asylum seekers.
But she despairs for the lingering, untreated mental toll on people, who spend months and years not knowing if they’ll be accepted as Australian permanent residents.
“It’s a different stress now with people getting their refugee applications rejected and others being out of detention for so long but nothing happening.
“Legal funding has been cut off. Lawyers are doing some cases pro bono but only the cases they are certain they will win.
“The rest of them have to represent themselves with no legal experience.”
She said many traumatised people had got used to lying in bed in detention centres.
When released, they continued to sleep during the day, partly to save money by cutting down on meals.
She says there also needs to be more federal funding for “meaningful activities”.
“There’s funding for language classes and social groups but not for activities upskilling them, to make them job-ready – if they have work rights.”
Friends of Refugees is seeking volunteers and traders to help run classes, including work skills training. Donations of fridges and washing machines, even not in working order, are welcome. Details: contact@srisamy.com.au
