Assisting marginalized refugees and asylum-seekers by the Community Care Refugee Programme

“We started the  Community Care refugee Programme as the newest programme of our Community Care Inc about 4 years ago as we wanted  to provide assistance to marginalized refugees and asylum seekers living in Western Sydney. While a lot of groups do this, they tend to focus on those recognized as “fastracked for residence" and they get case management fees for such clients. Through my work with NGOs, I wanted to include those who were being ignored, under review or on Bridging Visas. I didn’t want anyone to be turned away. Especially the desperate.

In Late 2014 we had about 6 families for Christmas.  There were only a couple of volunteers.  Twelve Months later we had 140 for Christmas after a year of regular food parcels  and other initiatives such as  helping the  kids on starting school. We approached retailers to bargain items. Through 2016 we were offering Bill Assistance, weekly Food and Non Food
parcels and advocacy. 2017 was our biggest year yet.  As part of the  Multicultural initiative  we had a number of multicultural events including:  Energy Day which  was energy efficiency Multicultural style, Gardening Pots  day with Bunnings. A Literacy Storybook Event with the most Popular Book being “ I'm an Australian Too.”

Success brought many new clients with us, often going to near empty with the
food and parcels.  One day recently we had 73 families in two hours. We ran out of rice, then the oil, then vegetables. As we rely on donations for more than 75% of our budget we needed to find more donors in a hurry as so many families are counting on us for Christmas.  Christmas is to be backpacks with presents for the children and household gifts in carry bags for the parents.

We  hope to expand further, moving into more partnerships and  especially to help our mums and  grandmothers  who  we are starting to assist with Community Links, Job seeking and  linking with education initiatives.''

For more on this important cause, check out their crowdfunding campaign page below!