Australian Greens: How can we help?

CARAD provides critical services and for many is the service of last resort for asylum seekers, refugees and detainees in WA, particularly when government support is minimal or denied

By Alison Xamon, General Manager, Centre for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees (CARAD)

Are you looking for something practical and tangible that you can do to support refugees and people seeking asylum who are living here in WA?

The Centre for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees (CARAD) is a community led organisation that for over 20 years has been providing support to people who have arrived in Australia and sought asylum, people who are being detained in our Immigration Detention Centres, and people whose refugee status has been determined but who still require support. As our logo says, CARAD is Compassion in Action.

Many people seeking asylum are denied any form of government benefit or work rights. For those that are given either of these, it is ordinarily at a far lower level than even meagre Centrelink payments, or their work rights are restricted. CARAD is the service of last resort, the service that for the people we support, stands between their destitution and the decision to have to return to a country where their life is in danger (assuming they are not stateless!). For two decades CARAD has been running a weekly Foodbank and providing emergency relief to support people seeking asylum with the necessities of life. This is done as a result of generous donations from people of compassion.

CARAD also provides material aid and an extensive visitation program for those people left to languish in WA Detention Centres – Yongah Hill at Northam, the Perth Immigration Detention Centre at the airport and the Christmas Island Detention Centre. Some of these people have been there over 10 years, with no end date in sight.

CARAD has literally hundreds of volunteers that are involved in everything from the Foodbank, to teaching English, to visitations, to public speaking and community engagement, to participating in our popular Opening Doors program which provides one to one support for refugees and people seeking asylum who need additional supports.

As the only WA organisation solely focused on refugees and people seeking asylum, CARAD plays a critical role in advocating on behalf of, and in conjunction with, the people that we support, providing both individual and systemic advocacy.

Finally, we run a social enterprise called FareGo which includes a Foodtruck, catering and running school canteens. This social enterprise provides valuable training and employment opportunities for people seeking asylum (who have been granted work rights) to ensure they have a liveable wage and the opportunity to develop an Australian work history.

CARAD receives no Federal funding, and wouldn’t accept it if it was offered, as we prioritise our capacity to speak out against the injustices that we witness towards refugees and people seeking asylum. But it means that we are reliant on people of conscience, people of good heart, to support the valuable work that we do.

Please visit our website carad.org.au and consider becoming a member, donating money, supporting the Foodbank, volunteering, buying merchandise or organising a fundraiser. This is something you can do to be one of the many Australians who recognise that the cruelty meted out to refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia by successive governments is not being done in our name. That we can be a better, more compassionate, and Welcoming Australia. Because we are One World, and One Humanity.

_{[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]}