On Our Shores : Refugee Week Q&A event
by Diana Nguyen
Our third special Q&A event after our beautiful and poignant show “SticksnStones’ at Federation Square, Melbourne Playback Theatre Company celebrated
“ON OUR SHORES”
Every year, the world celebrates World Refugee Day, and our multicultural and diverse communities living here in Australia. What makes our country proud is the contributions each Australian has brought and given back. On Thursday 23rd of June, Melbourne Playback Theatre Company brought Melbourne together to “Celebrate the Fighting Spirit in Our Community.”
With the recent #LetThemStay, #BringThemHere and the crisis of Australian asylum seeker policies detaining humans on offshore detention centres, Melbourne Playback allowed a space for human stories to be heard to remind us what was at cost.
For hundreds of years, many have set sail to call Australia home. With refugees risking their lives at sea, the Australian government is still shipping children and women into offshore detention centres. Melbourne Playback Theatre Company puts a spotlight on why we continue the plea for all people to be treated humanely,
Alex Sangster, MPTC Company member welcomed the audience from Footscray and afar and introduced our four wonderful panelists who shared their stories
Mariam Issa – Refugee, Author and Human Rights Advocate
Kon Karapanagiotidis – CEO and co founder of Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC)
Lucy Honan – member of Refugee Action Collective
Mohammad Ali Baqiri – Refugee and Human Rights Advocate
The evening Q&A flowed into a performance from Melbourne playback where audience members shared their own stories of their own refugee experience, or their connections and relationships with refugees and migrants who have impacted their lives.
Stories of
Love between a young couple from two different lands, onions and being grateful.
A mother’s separation from her son for one second, while hearing the story of Mohammad Ali who has been separated from his mother for years.
A woman’s despair of fleeing, and sadness by the Australian Government off-shore detentions, but hope for the future.
“We left the theatre that night having examined and gained insight into some human parts of ourselves and our fellow audience members that are not so often brought into the public or the conscious eye.”
Review by SYN June 2016
Thank you to the following supporters ASRC, Amnesty International, Refugee Action Collective, Love Makes a Way and Footscray Community Arts Centre.
