By Parker McKenzie
Several community-based refugee and social justice groups have come together for a middle-eastern feast at the Emerald Senior Citizens Centre, to raise funds to support seekers of asylum in Australia.
Marilyn Huber, from the Social Justice Group of the Catholic Parish, said the group has partnered with Casey Grandmothers 4 Refugees and the Asylum Seeker Centre Dandenong for the fundraiser.
“The Middle Eastern feast idea came from the KC grandmothers. They ran one in someone’s home a year ago and when I attended I thought we could do this on a larger scale,” she said.
“We were scheduled to do it last October and we just had to put it off, but now we’ve got a bit of a window away from Covid and we thought we’d make the move.”
The feast will be held on 3 April from 1pm, with a $25 dollar donation on entry. Bookings from 1 April are essential to ensure a spot.
Ms Huber said some of the people currently in indefinite detention have been there for nine years.
“They are people running away from a situation we’d all run away from,” she said.
“They happen to get into boats and they happen to be helped along by people that they paid. They landed here and had been more or less demonised.”
Ms Huber said there will be music by Josh Licht and a speech from David Spitteler from the Asylum Seekers Centre Dandenong.
“He’s been working with asylum seekers for 25 years and he’s going to be a guest speaker, and we’ll give some of what we raised to his organisation too,” she said.
“He runs a kind of a free supermarket for asylum seekers, you’ve got to have some kind of identification and he allows you to come and take food for a period of six months while you need it.”
Emerald Senior Citizens Centre is located at 8 Church Street Emerald and booking for the event can be made by calling 0423615662.
