Established in 1981 as the
proudly serving Melton and Moorabool
21 FEBRUARY, 2023
12496404-AV22-21
FREE DIGITAL EDITION
SIG N U P N O W!
Party time in Eynesbury The second annual A Day in India Festival is returning to Eynesbury on Saturday, February 25. From 2pm, all the way through until 10pm the Eynesbury Quarter will host an abundance of Indian food, entertainment and shopping. There will be a bazaar market, food trucks full of traditional cuisine, cultural dance performances, as well as dance competitions. The entire day will be backdropped by live music and DJ’s, and there’ll also be fun kids activities such as henna, balloon art and more. The date of the festival was picked to arrive at the same time of year as Holi Day on March 8. It’s the second A Day in India event hosted in Eynesbury. Eynesbury Quarter general manager Brad Alton said it’s been added to the yearly calendar after last year’s success. Last year the event saw around 3000 attendees. Mr Alton said the crowd favourite was the school students’ dance performances. Mr Alton said he’s “excited” to see what this year delivers. “It’s definitely a culture that knows how to party,” he said.
Traditional dancers at Eynesbury’s A Day in India 2022. (Supplied)
Threat to asylum support
FSA/DETS1330
For more than 20 years, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has been providing vital support to people seeking asylum in Australia, but now financial pressures are putting the service at risk. The ASRC is quickly running out of savings, with the executive team warning its only has a month and a half before it will be forced to close its doors. ASRC chief executive and founder Kon Karapanagiotidis said the centre needs the community’s help to keep its doors open after supporting those seeking asylum. “Despite sticking to our budgets, cost of living and inflationary pressures means public donations are down 45 per cent since
July 2022,” he said. “Despite a number of interventions, such as reducing our workforce by 10 per cent in August last year, our savings are running out and we have just six weeks to save the ASRC from stopping to deliver critical services.” ASRC refugee leadership and advocacy director Ogy Simic understands first-hand the importance of services like the ASRC. At four years old, Mr Simic was forced to leave his home in Sarajevo when civil war broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He left with his mother and siblings while his father, a journalist, remained and was killed during the conflict. After years of relocations, Mr Simic’s family was granted refugee visas and settled in
Adelaide when he was 11 years old. He described the “culture shock” of arriving in a distant country, where he didn’t speak the language. “It was organisations like the ASRC that supported us. We had somebody meet us at the airport who provided support for us to be able to enrol in school, to be able to set up a bank account, set up a Medicare, all of those things are really important,” he said. “We have a huge number of people who are in need of organisations like the ASRC in order to get by. “For so many people the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre is their doctor, is their pharmacy, is their supermarket, and that’s so unique for an organisation to be like that.” Donations help the ASRC keep its doors
open and provide food, housing, healthcare, legal support and other essential services to the 7000 people who rely on its services every day. Of the people seeking asylum in Australia, 97 per cent have no access to social support systems, including income, housing as well as educational assistance and legal aid. Mr Karapanagiotidis said the ASRC still has a lot of work left to do. “There are thousands and thousands of people seeking asylum who have been denied their basic rights by governments that seek to dehumanise and harm. “We are asking the community to help save a movement of hope, welcome and compassion.” Details: donate.asrc.org.au/donatetoday
Find a Kinder Program near you. There is still time to enrol for the 2023 kindergarten year. Find services offering approved kindergarten programs by scanning the QR code. Find out more at vic.gov.au/kinder
12591092-AV08-23
By Liam McNally