By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
PUBLICITY-SHY but unquestionably generous, Elaine Smith is a major reason for Friends of Refugees acquiring a desperately-needed truck.
The 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.
The Narre Warren South retired pharmacist’s 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, organiser of Rural Australians for Refugees 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.”
Her eyes were opened by the Tampa incident in 2001 when 450-odd asylum seekers rescued by a Norweigan container ship off Christmas Island were in a stalemate with the Australian Government.
“I knew that Australia welcomed refugees so when I was seeing people put in detention, I was thinking this can’t be true.
“I was thinking this can’t happen here.”
From that point, she was a tireless advocate and friend.
She wrote hundreds of letters to asylum seekers detained in Nauru and Port Hedland detention centres.
She also organised some comforts such as toys, watches, cameras, sewing needles and other donations to locked-up families in Nauru who were without electricity and showered in cold water.
“I thought if someone gave a bit of something, you could at least get their mind on the topic.
“It’s worse in Nauru now,” she added grimly.
Soon, families released from detention centres visited the Smiths’ home then in a NSW coastal hamlet Laurieton as a holiday destination.
“It was hard to communicate. We were pretty ignorant,” Ms Smith said.
“I didn’t know where Afghanistan was, or the difference between Iran and Iraq.”
Within three years, the Smiths were standing on the border of Iran and Iraq – attending a wedding.
That couple was one of scores who have stayed with them in Australia in the past 10 years.
In their home among a thriving native garden with chooks and a friendly terrier, Ms Smith’s husband Geoff said: “We’re technically a detention centre.”
Ms Smith noticed that detention had stunted children’s development.
“These little kids would just sit in their room and couldn’t really play.
“They weren’t allowed to go to a state school because they didn’t have a visa.
“Fortunately a Catholic school took them out of the kindess of their heart.”
In 2008 she and husband Geoff moved from their beautiful coastal hinterland to specifically help in Australia’s biggest refugee hot-spot – south-east Melbourne.
They recognised there would be problems for more than 2600 asylum seekers on bridging visas trying to settle and survive in Dandenong and surrounding suburbs.
“I’m so pleased to be here. I’m excited by the different people I meet,” Ms Smith said.
“I wouldn’t go back to the ignorance. You get to see the world a bit more.”
As she toils across several support groups, her husband Geoff voluntarily teaches English to several groups and individuals a week.
Of the Friends of Refugees’ truck, she said she didn’t mind contributing a little of her superannuation, though Geoff often prods her to give more.
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.
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.
Ms Smith said all of her groups are crying out for volunteers to share their time and skills such as sewing, English language and job-ready training.
“It seems unbelievable that Australia doesn’t protect refugees, doesn’t welcome them and then tries to make their life as hard as possible,” she said.
“It’s not the Australia I know so it’s up to us as individuals to do as much as possible.”
