By Casey Neill
Springvale bucked the trend in the way it welcomed refugees in the 1970s.
The final marker is now in place on the Spirit of Enterprise Trail to honour that period in the area’s history.
“Let’s not forget the lessons that we learnt in the early days about how much a welcome to newly-arrived people creates a great community,” organiser Merle Mitchell said.
She was thrilled to launch the final trail point at Lightwood and Springvale roads on Sunday 26 March.
Each landmark has links to the Enterprise Migrant Hostel, now the site of the Lexington Gardens retirement village but for decades a site that welcomed immigrants and refugees.
“So many people contributed right from the very beginning when we put the first exhibition into the Melbourne Immigration Museum,” Ms Mitchell said.
“That was back in November 2008.”
The project has since included a commemorative rose garden and “had a big impact on a lot of people”.
“It’s so important to preserve history and actually to learn the lessons from history,” she said.
“Springvale was so unique and so different to every other municipality around Victoria.
“It was Springvale who said, right back in 1970 … ‘you are welcome, keep your language, keep your culture, build your places of worship, you are part of the whole’.
“No other place did that.
“There’s still a lot in that message for us to learn.”
Ms Mitchell hoped the next step would be a board with a map of all the markers, and smaller boards at each marker site so people can walk the whole trail.
She’d also like to see a community walk of the trail ending at the new Springvale community centre once it is complete.
Councillor Matthew Kirwan launched the marker on behalf of Mayor Jim Memeti.
“My first introduction to the Enterprise Project was within five minutes of being sworn in as a councillor late 2012,” he said.
“I can literally remember turning around in the busy meeting rooms of the old Springvale Council Chamber seeing this older woman slowly navigating her way through the crowd from one end of the room to the other to speak to me.
“She said she was Merle Mitchell and wanted to meet with to talk about the Enterprise project.”
Cr Kirwan said then-Springvale Mayor Andrew Ericksen’s welcome to new arrivals was “hardly radical now, but in a time when the White Australia Policy had just ended and assimilation was then the accepted norm it was ground-breaking”.
“I started meeting more and more residents who had spent time at the Enterprise Hostel and heard their personal stories,” Cr Kirwan said.
“Closer to home I learned that my mother-in-law, who had come to Australia from Switzerland in the 1970s, had a link to Enterprise Hostel – her boyfriend at the time had stayed there.”
Other markers recognise that the Multicultural Teacher’s Aide program started at Springvale Rise Primary School, Springvale Neighbourhood House was built to provide a space for cultural groups to meet, and the Springvale Road shopping centre has always reflected the ever-changing population.
