A celebration of Cardinia Shire’s many cultures was held at Living Learning Pakenham to mark World Refugee Day.
Tuesday 20 June saw the centre host a multi-cultural feast and traditional costume display to raise awareness of the struggles refugees have gone through to seek asylum.
The theme for this year’s Refugee Week, held from 18 to 24 June, was “with courage let us all combine”, taken from the second verse of the national anthem and celebrating the courage of refugees and those who speak out against persecution and injustice.
The commemoration week also encourages Australians to improve their welcome for refugees and to acknowledge the skills and energy refugees bring to their new home.
Living Learning Pakenham CEO Miriam Cadwallader said Cardinia Shire was a rich multi-cultural area that a number of refugees now called home.
In 2014 Cardinia Shire became a Refugee Welcome Zone, a council area which has made a commitment in spirit to welcoming refugees and migrants from refugee backgrounds into the community, upholding the human rights of refugees, as for all of Cardinia residents, and enhancing cultural and religious diversity in the community.
Ms Cadwallader said it was important people understood every refugee’s journey was different.
“Most have faced deeply distressing and harrowing experiences and many have survived a range of physical, psychological and emotional traumas,” Ms Cadwallader said.
“Refugees who come to Australia often have little understanding about our country and the nature of society here.
They have had no opportunity to prepare themselves physically or psychologically for their new life in Australia.”
This was why initiatives such as Living Learning Pakenham were important, she said.
“Our services help not only with their language barriers but also how to settle in Australia and the Australian way of life, but not forgetting their culture and where they came from, but being able to merge the two successfully,” Ms Cadwallader said.
For more information on World Refugee Week, visit: www.refugeeweek.org.au
