Migrant families try tree change in city-country doco

NEW SBS documentary Meet the Neighbours is following eight culturally diverse families who have moved from the city to the country.

For the three-month experiment, participants relocated to Maryborough, population of 8000, and one of the least ethnically diverse and most disadvantaged communities in Australia.

There’s Akon from South Sudan, who arrived in Australia as a refugee aged six and just wants to play for the Maryborough Cricket Club.

The Singh family from Punjab hope to find peace and calm in the country, with father Navtej taking a job in a quarry but his sons fear stereotyping and racism as the only Sikh students at their new school.

And what will happen when the new Salvadorean chef at the town’s Park Hotel wants to put spicy food on the menu?

Maryborough businesses can’t find people to fill dozens of available jobs and some at the pub say they would welcome anyone to the town, as long as they are willing to assimilate.

Meet the Neighbours host Myf Warhurst, who grew up in Donald, visited the town periodically to check in with the participants and said they were brave to make the move.

“To up sticks from anywhere and just jump in headfirst takes a lot of guts and I thought the project was really interesting,” she said.

Meet the Neighbours also tracks the Welcome to Central Goldfields pilot project.

The three-episode program is designed as an entry point to examine Australia’s city-country divide and the issues facing regional areas, such as housing, ageing populations and skills shortages, said Jacob Hickey from Blackfella Films.

“Hopefully it will not just change the lives of the people involved but also change the way the viewers think about Australia,” he said.

The documentary tracks the local council’s Welcome to Central Goldfields pilot project with AMES Australia, which aims to settle migrants in regional Australia.

Maryborough is almost twice as white as the rest of Australia, according to journalist George Megalogenis, and older residents greatly outnumber young people.

Without an influx of new people, towns like this will become aged care homes with no-one left to look after people, he says in the first episode.

Participants also tell of their encounters with racist attitudes, although according to Hickey they generally felt welcome in Maryborough.

“We were not provoking those things, they were part of everyday life that we captured in this town,” he said.

Meet the Neighbours screens weekly on SBS from last Wednesday and is available on SBS On Demand in Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean, as well as with audio description for blind and low vision audiences.

– LIZ HOBDAY/AAP