BALMAIN

Balmain for Refugees is a committee of the Balmain Uniting Church which, since its inception, has relied on volunteers from the church and the general community (lawyers, law students, psychiatrists, psychologists, interpreters, transcribers, journalists and others from a wide range of backgrounds), to assist us in our work. 

 

Balmain for Refugees was founded in March 2002 in the wake of the Tampa crisis. Our initial focus was on providing assistance to failed asylum seekers in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre. Gradually our attention was extended to asylum seekers detained in other detention centres as well as to asylum seekers and refugees living in the community. 

 

We estimate that, in the 23 years since our inception, we have assisted over two thousand asylum seekers and refugees in ways such as: 

•    Drafting applications for protection visas and for sponsorship of their partners and children to enable them to join them in Australia. 

•    Preparing appeals to Australian courts against legally flawed decisions by immigration authorities, 

•    Writing requests to the Minister to intervene and provide protection to failed asylum seekers who risk torture or death if returned to their home country. 

•    Recruiting, training and managing dozens of volunteers and interpreters to draft protection visa applications for asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat between 2012 and 2013 and were suddenly granted the right to apply for visas.  

•    Assisting many refugees languishing on Nauru or Manus Island to complete the complex process of applying for visas to migrate to Canada.

•    Ongoing support for refugees in Australia as they deal with the challenges of a very different life and cope with the traumas which they had endured before they fled their home countries, on their journeys to Australia or as they sought asylum here.

•    Completing application forms for a wide variety of government and community services.   

 

Currently a small group of volunteers continues to provide support to a limited number of asylum seekers and refugees in detention or living in the community. The people we are assisting are those whom larger agencies are unable to assist. They often have very complex issues and many have ongoing mental health problems or have been struggling unsuccessfully for many years to have their claim for asylum recognised. Others need support to deal with government and other agencies or to adjust to particular challenges in their lives. 

 

Since its inception, the Balmain Uniting Church has provided generous assistance to our work for the expenses which we incur on behalf of our clients.

 

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