Circle of Friends Australia’s newest Circle is the Forgotten Refugees Support Circle (Circle 139) and our first Brisbane based Circle.
This is the Circle’s description of their work:
Who are we?
We are a group of Brisbane volunteers (plus valued supporters from interstate) working to house, feed, and care for otherwise destitute refugees trapped in Indonesia. This cohort are without allowances, work rights, access to healthcare or timely long-term resettlement options. We also plan to resettle skilled work ready refugees by sponsoring them under Refugee Skills Visas
Who are the ‘Forgotten Refugees’ in Indonesia?
Whilst visiting Indonesia, we initially got to know refugees living rough in the street, in front of UNHCR in Jakarta. These people either lost their very small allowances from UNHCR because of severe budget cutbacks, or family back home were unable to continue supporting them because of their own poverty. Some never had an allowance, and others had left IOM centres on other Islands because of unaddressed mental or physical issues and came to the UNHCR office wrongly believing they might be helped.
This cohort are comprised of mainly Afghan and Pakistani Hazaras, plus Somalis, Sudanese, Rohingya, and a scattering of others. Most are men alone, who have fled for their lives or been sent out by their families. More recently we are seeing Somali and Sudanese families. Invariably they’ve fled war and persecution in their own countries and are seeking a place of refuge. Ultimately all seek to re-establish their lives in a third country where they can work to support their families, either back home or elsewhere, and ultimately seek to reunite with them.
What do we do?
Firstly, we provide funding for housing, food, other necessities of life, and (when we can fund it) health care. We encourage the refugees to share their skills and resources for mutual support including education initiatives run by refugees for refugees. We aim to visit Indonesia annually to meet, support better understand their needs. These visits are paid for by volunteers out of their own pocket to ensure all donor funds go exclusively to refugees. At present our core group of 8 regular monthly financial donors provide ongoing support to just over ~45 people.
In addition, generally by a special appeal, we support some of the Indoneisan cohort’s close family who are refugees elsewhere, such as Iran or Pakistan.
Secondly, in the medium to longer term we are aiming to sponsor resettlement of some refugees in Australia by accessing Refugee Skills Visas and finding suitable employers for work ready individuals (particularly in the building industry that is crying out for skilled labour in Qld)
Finally, we work to lobby our government to increase the refugee intake and lift the mandatory ban on refugees that arrived in Indonesia after 1 July 2014. We particularly seek a government commitment to resettling long-term refugees stranded in Indonesia, many living without hope or support on the margins for over 10 years.
How can you get involved?
- Join our group The ‘Forgotten Refugees’ Support Circle
- Financially support our ongoing work regularly (monthly preferred), or make a one-off donation to one of our special appeals – all donations are fully tax deductible.
- Pledge a gift or interest-free loan to finance refugee resettlement under Refugee Skills visas, and ultimately family reunion visas – all gifts are fully tax deductible, as are gifts to our revolving no interest loan fund. The latter fund allows loans to refugees for resettlement costs that are repayable to the fund to be loaned out again. These funds are never to be repaid to the original donor. Repayable loans are also possible but are not tax deductible.
- Lobby your Federal member to urge adoption of a more generous refugee policy
For more information you can contact the Convenor Erica Lloyd-Smith or Treasurer Ralph Lloyd-Smith.
