By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
Volunteer takes to the road to help asylum seekers…
PUBLICITY-SHY but unquestionably generous, Elaine Smith is a major reason for Friends of Refugees acquiring a desperately-needed truck.
The Dandenong-based group had set a $30,000 crowdfunding target to buy a new truck to pick up and deliver donated furniture, whitegoods, food and other essentials for the region’s vast number of asylum seeker families.
Still short of the target, the plan was salvaged by Ms Smith who pitched in the $30,000 herself.
Her only regret was that she didn’t donate the money sooner.
It has left the volunteer group with a healthy near-$25,000 surplus to cover the truck’s running costs.
Ms Smith wanted to keep her donation quiet but was convinced by Friends of Refugees chief executive Sri Samy to help “inspire others”.
The benefactor sets a cracking example – a project manager for Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Coalition, founder for Women’s Friendship Cafe in Hampton Park as well as a foster-mum to unaccompanied minors.
Her philosophy is that she simply wants to help where there was greatest need.
“At first I thought I could do nothing. Then I watched other people I could relate to and I saw they were doing it.”
In 2008 she and husband Geoff moved from the beautiful coastal town of Laurieton in NSW to specifically help in Australia’s biggest refugee hot-spot – south-east Melbourne.
More than 2600 asylum seekers on bridging visas live in Dandenong and surrounding suburbs.
Ms Smith, a retired pharmacist, said she didn’t mind contributing a little of her superannuation, though her like-minded husband often prods her to give more.
“It seems unbelievable that Australia doesn’t protect refugees, doesn’t welcome them and then tries to make their life as hard as possible.
“It’s not the Australia I know so it’s up to us as individuals to do as much as possible.”
Over the past two years – hindered by a fuel-guzzling and unreliable truck, Friends of Refugees has delivered goods to about 850 Melbourne asylum seeker families somehow living on less than the dole.
One recent example was a family which was begging for financial help on Facebook because they had their Centrelink benefits removed while waiting to appeal against a failed claim for asylum.
“That’s the whole idea,” Ms Samy said.
“The government wants to break people financially, physically and emotionally.”
Without government funding, Friends of Refugees relies on volunteers and donors such as a Carey Grammar parent who donated a box of new blankets.
The group needs sewing machines, laptops, lawn movers and whipper snippers as well as volunteers to teach asylum seekers to fix mowers.
Lawyers, gardeners and qualified child carers are also needed.
To help, contact Ms Samy at contact@srisamy.com.au.
