Events wrap up Refugee Week

A week-long celebration of unity comes to a close on Saturday night, with a candlelight vigil held at Rosalind Park.

Tomorrow night, Amnesty Bendigo will host an online webinar in collaboration with the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law.

Speaking at the event will be ambassador for the Refugee Advice and Casework Service Zaki Haidari, Mostafa Azimitabar – a Kurdish refugee who spent 2737 days in detention, and spoken-word poet living on a temporary protection visa Hani Abdile.

Convenor for Amnesty Bendigo said Hani Abdile has a special connection to the town and Rural Australians for Refugees convenor Christine Cummins, who worked for five years as a trauma counsellor on Christmas Island.

“They’ve got some very well-spoken people who are on temporary visas speaking at that,” Ms Govett said. “Hani is the really interesting one on that for us in Bendigo.

“Christine Cummins knew her when she was on Christmas Island and then she came to speak at our Rural Australian Refugee conference back in 2015 here in Bendigo.”

“She’s a lovely young woman and she’s got a special link to Bendigo.”

Tomorrow afternoon, Neighbourhood Collective Australia, together with Loddon Campaspe Multicultural Services and MAV, will host a community-cooked lunch with music and stories to celebrate the contribution refugees have made to the community.

The lunch will be held at 12.30pm at the Cultural Exchange in the Beehive Building.

Ms Govett said recognising and celebrating the positive impact refugees have made is what refugee week is all about.

“Refugees are settled here and become really part of our fabric in Bendigo and contribute so much, it’s quite amazing the cultural things that are brought to the city, and the economic things, the growth of the city they’ve brought,” she said.

“Settlement is really part of the fabric, it goes back to our goldmine days where people came from every part of the globe and settled here and contributed socially, culturally, economically to who we are.”

On Saturday night a vigil will see Amnesty groups all over Australia come together to reflect and appreciate on people who have overcome hardships to settle in Bendigo.

“Amnesty’s calling for a night of action, we’re having a candlelight vigil and we’re hoping a number of towns around Australia will have a vigil or something to mark the end of refugee week,” Ms Govett said.