“We all have a part to play.”
The Uniting Church in Australia’s National Safe Church Unit has released a new Child Safe Principles poster for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members.
Grace Williams, artist and a proud palawa woman from the South-East nations of lutrawita, has created powerful artwork for a new Principles for a Child Safe Uniting Church in Australia poster, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members and communities.
Beananging Kwuurt Institute (BKI), a Uniting Church WA Aboriginal community services organisation in Queens Park, Perth, held a NAIDOC Week storytelling event on Wednesday 7 July. Guests were invited to listen, learn, share, and enjoy kangaroo stew and damper together. This year’s NAIDOC theme is ‘Heal Country!’
In the 1930s, the site where BKI now stands was set up as Sister Kate’s Children’s Cottage Home, an institution for Indigenous children taken from their families, who are now known as the Stolen Generations.
Auntie Helen Skiadas, Board Member of Beananging Kwuurt Institute, spoke saying they are hoping to bring healing to people with a past connection to the site.
“We hope that as we slowly restore some of the land, it will heal some of the dark past,” she said. “We haven’t stopped dreaming of change here at BKI – and renewal – and we hope for happier times of joy and gladness for all our people.”
After a Welcome to Country by Kevin Fitzgerald, Board Member at BKI, and the raising of the Aboriginal flag by Tramaine Dukes, RAAF Indigenous Liaison Officer Flt Lt, Jo Abrahams shared some of the history of Beananging Kwuurt Institute and her personal connection to the place. Jo is a Ngarluma woman with ties to Roebourne. She has worked with the WA Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation, and has spent the last ten years reconnecting with her past.
Jo’s grandmother and great uncle were taken as children from their parents in the Pilbara region to be raised at the Sister Kate’s site. She said that Sister Kate’s intentions for the mission were well meaning, but with AO Neville’s government policy at the time, this is not how things played out.
“Children were selectively chosen for this place based on the colour of their skin,” Jo said. “Almost white children were actively targeted and slated for removal. These children were thought to have the best chance for assimilation into the dominating European culture.
“Generations of Aboriginal families in this state existed on a knife’s edge. The colour of a child’s skin making them a target of removal. Neville’s obsession with skin colour resulted in insulting, painful and ludicrous practices. Especially given that siblings of the same mum and dad could be graded differently by his designation, not actually by their bloodlines.
“Under his policies of assimilation, Aboriginality was something to be escaped, denied, watered down and eventually bred out. It sowed seeds of shame and guilt, self loathing and lostness.”
This policy of removal stayed in place until 1964, with amendments.
“What do we do now in WA with the hangover from previous generations? What have we inherited that needs to be disinherited?” Jo asked.
“One thing Neville didn’t factor on, is me and many others like me who are so proud of their Aboriginality. And that Aboriginality has got nothing to do with colour, and all to do with bloodline. We’re proud of our bloodline and where we’ve come from and the people who’ve come before us.
“There are still Aboriginal people who believe the lies that were told in this place – that they don’t matter. Be patient and understand there is a deep brokenness that’s hanging over from places like this.
“We don’t need more police officers in this space, we need more grief counselors to help us to deal with our brokenness, and support to give us spaces where we can come together and heal with each other.
“It’s a shared experience and understanding that brings space for healing.”
Susy Thomas, Moderator of the Uniting Church WA, blessed the gathering, before guests enjoyed a lunch of kangaroo stew and damper.
“May God bless you and guide you, and help us to walk alongside with you,” she said.
A Dreaming Session for BKI will be held on Wednesday 21 July, 10.00am to 4.00pm. Guests are invited to come along and share their dreams for what they would like to see happen at Beananging Kwuurt Institute, 188 Treasure Rd Queens Park, into the future.
Heather Dowling
In early February, bushfires tore through properties in the north-east of Perth, destroying 86 homes along the way. But since February, news of the fires has been trumped by lockdowns, an election and a cyclone. For affected communities, however, the fire is still very much front of mind.
Refugee Week (20 – 26 June) was launched with an inspirational event held at the Uniting Church in the City, Wesley Perth on Monday 21 June.
The free, collaborative event, which was co-hosted by the Uniting Church WA Social Justice Unit, included speakers from various refugee backgrounds, music, art and an all-important food truck.
Most Australians don’t realise that we put kids in prison. In a public opinion poll by the Australia Institute, 73% of Australians had no idea that children as young as ten are currently locked up in our prison system.
It’s not surprising, since most people imagine kids at that age to be, well… kids.
But the facts tell us that for some, this is not the case. The Commissioner for Children and Young People in WA reports that in 2018-2019, 143 children in WA spent time in unsentenced detention. This unsentenced detention can range from an average of 25 days for non-Indigenous children and 46 days for Indigenous children – keeping in mind that 78% of kids in detention are Indigenous.
Years ago, Alison Xamon began to envisage a new kind of ministry. A church community that would be truly welcoming and safe for all. A group that would see the fight for justice as simply part of being Christian.
It was a type of worship that Alison longed for, but over time it became clear that if she really wanted it to happen, she would have to make it happen. So, she did.
Sorry Day is held each year on 26 May to remember and acknowledge the Stolen Generations.
Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips is a member of the Bringing Them Home Committee, supported by the Uniting Church WA. She is also the author of ‘Survivor Memorials: Remembering trauma and loss in contemporary Australia’, and worked as Media and Communications Manager at the Uniting Church Centre from 2005 to 2012. She reflects on what Sorry Day means to her.
Justice for Refugees WA, a network of more the 40 community organisations, faith groups and human rights agencies, is calling on Australia’s political leaders to abandon the current harsh and unjust policies of detention, uncertainty and limbo, and to instead provide permanent protection for people seeking safety. Instead of prolonging the despair of people seeking asylum, the group calls for political leaders to provide protection, security and freedom, through a fair and just process.
Over several years the group has coordinated the Palm Sunday Walk for Justice for Refugees along with groups around the country. This year, as a precautionary approach in light of COVID-19, the group hosted a live webinar event at the Uniting Church in the City Hall, Perth, which was watched by small groups gathered in community centres and homes across the state.
Farhad Bandesh, a Kurdish asylum seeker who was recently released from a Melbourne immigration facility following eight years of detention, called into the Perth Palm Sunday event to share his experience. Mr Bandesh said, “I can’t describe how good it feels to be out of detention – freedom is beautiful. We just need everyone to be free.”
Joanna Josephs, General Manager of the Centre for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees (CARAD) was a guest speaker at the event. CARAD provides essential case management, emergency relief and volunteer support for people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds in Perth, and they are concerned at the increasing demands on their service.
Ms Josephs explained that it was a particularly challenging time at the moment, saying, “We have been experiencing a significant increase in need among our client community.
“There continues to be drastic cuts to the Department of Home Affairs’ (DHA) Status Resolution Support Service (SRSS) program. In WA, out of the thousands of people seeking asylum living in our community, only 78 people remain eligible to receive just $36 per day from Centrelink (through the SRSS program). All of the other people seeking asylum are completely ineligible for any form of Centrelink.
“The federal government must not continue to deliberately force people seeking asylum to live in the community with no financial support while they take years to process asylum claims.”
Associate Professor Caroline Fleay, Co-Director of the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University added her voice to the call for a humane response to people seeking safety saying, “Let’s be guided by compassion in how we respond to others. Instead of limbo and uncertainty, we can offer freedom and a future where people seeking asylum and their families are safe.
“The cruelty of immigration detention, forcing people to live on temporary visas indefinitely, and refusing to reunite families, none of these are humane solutions for those who have turned to us for refuge.”
Susy Thomas, Moderator of the Uniting Church Western Australia said, “Australians have had enough of the cruel marginalisation of refugees. People want to see some real change in the way people seeking asylum are treated. Indefinite detention and temporary visas create terrible anguish that we cannot, with good conscience, continue to allow.”
Refugees and people seeking asylum currently languish in either the limbo of detention or the uncertainty of temporary protection visas. People in Papua New Guinea and Nauru are approaching their eighth year in limbo.
Approximately 30,000 refugees in Australia (the “legacy caseload”) await visa grants or live on temporary visas with their futures shrouded in uncertainty and limbo. Many families are separated with no hope for reunification due to the cruelty of current policy, and live in constant fear of deportation to danger.
For further information contact the UCWA Social Justice team at social.justice@wa.uca.org.au.
To watch the livestream of the 2021 Justice for Refugees event, click here.
People from diverse local faith communities held a symbolic action today at Uniting Church in the City (UCIC), Wesley Perth where they rang bells to ‘sound the alarm’ for the climate.
The group rang bells at 11.00am on Thursday 11 March as part of a global multi-faith Day of Action in which over a hundred faith communities across Australia will call for more ambitious action on climate change. The lead local organisation is the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC), part of GreenFaith International.
The Uniting Church WA Social Justice Unit has teamed up with the Uniting Church Vic Tas, urging people to write to their local MPs asking for a greater investment in housing energy efficiency upgrades for social housing and low-income households.
The Uniting Church in Australia and the Uniting Church WA have always held particular concerns about the most vulnerable in our community, as well as minimising impacts on the environment. A simple way to address both of these concerns is by ensuring that people in social housing can reduce their electricity and gas costs through the provision of energy-efficient housing design, materials and appliances.