As some of you may already know, one of the Refugee Rights Action Networks ongoing projects is Dictionaries for Refugees. This project is providing bi-lingual dictionaries and other materials to detainees in Australian immigration detention centres. Currently we are concentrating on Curtin and Leonora detention centres.
Curtin is the the far north of Western Australia, about 2400 km from the capital city of Perth. There will soon be as many as 1200 single men detained there, in portable ‘dongas’, mostly if not exclusively from the Hazara ethnic minority of Afghanistan. The Lenora detention centre is in the goldfields town of Leonora, some 830 km from Perth, in a very arid and hot area of the state. Families, single mothers, children and even pregnant women are being held there. The mix of nationalities and ethnicities includes Tamils, Iranians and Hazaras. Once again, the accommodation is portable ‘dongas’, little more than a box with a door and a window.
As the word spreads among the detention population, the requests for dictionaries is soaring, so we need more funds. Please consider making a donation, or forward this email on to someone who might. We are thinking that professional educators in particular may have some interest in this project since it is essentially an education oriented program.
You can check out the project or donate at http://rran.org/dictionaries/. Please spread the word through whatever networks you have, in your union, among fellow students, work colleagues, family and friends.
Why dictionaries? Because the vast majority of people held in remote detention centres speak little or no English. This places them in a very disempowered situation, frequently not understanding their situation properly and not being able to advocate for themselves. This is a common problem during asylum application interviews, with translator error, or even hostile translators of rival ethnicity, causing problems.
Additionally it is often the case that detainees can not even properly explain their problems to immigration and detention staff, be they medical, personal or ordinary day-to-day problems. An instructive anecdote comes from a recent donation of a dictionary to a Tamil asylum seeker in Perth detention centre. The first thing he looked up was how to say “I need to speak to the detention manager”.
The refugees are very grateful for the dictionaries, it’s such a hopeful gift, with practical benefits. It gives them something to do and has the potential to be of great use for many years to come, even if their asylum applications are unsuccessful. One recipient in Curtin recently wrote to us:
“Dear Friends, we are glad you remembered we and we pray for you and Austaralian people whose help us for education and our English language emprofe. so we are so happy from you and all Austaralian people. Thanks for your helpe”.
This project really is a practical and tangible way to reduce the harm caused by immigration detention, particularly it cuts against the hostility and even hatred that detainees perceive is directed towards them. It’s also very good at building up connections with detainees and really helping to reduce their isolation and humanise them. This is a very important politically, to work against the racism and xenophobia that various political forces seek to exploit or even encourage.
REFUGEE RIGHTS ACTION NETWORK
Share this article
