Press Clippings 13

Getting here was the easy part...
by Chris Jackson

It’s 10:20 on a Saturday morning at the May Street Church in Footscray, and it looks like the congregation has shown up one day early. Boys are playing kick to kick with a football, narrowly avoiding disaster with errant kicks toward the adults who are greeting each other with wide smiles and handshakes. A group of girls stand alternating their attention between the boys and a new braided hairdo one of their friends has shown up with.

The clock ticks past 10:40 when Anna Grace Hopkins, founder and co-ordinator of the SAIL program, comes bustling out.

“That’s Anna Grace,” whispers Gavin Fleer, a volunteer tutor at the program. “I guess I’d better get the kids and go inside.”

He runs up to one of the boys who has just taken a screamer, and they troop into the church.

Anna Grace is far from scary as she hugs and smiles and shakes hands amongst the group. But there is method to the madness, and soon everyone is inside and hard at work. Classes have begun.

The May Street church on a Saturday is the home of the Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning (SAIL) program, a volunteer run organisation providing free services to Melbourne’s Sudanese community. Many in this community are refugees.

From the outside, it resembles chaos. The body of the church is filled with huddled groups of one or two Sudanese intensely concentrating with their tutors. They are spaced out widely along the pews, until you walk up closer and notice that they are jam packed in between the pews, on top of the pews, and somehow, underneath the pews.

“Don’t ask me why,” says Matthew Albert, another founder and co-ordinator of the program. “But for some reason, the place they all love to go is behind the hymn thingy.”
He gestures with his hand towards shelving at the front of the church holding many hymn books.

“There is a little hole cut in the wall there, and they just love it. No idea why!”
In the foyer of the church is the SAIL Senior program, where older members of the community come to learn. Next to them in a glassed in triangular room is the SAIL Junior program, where kids aged 0-5 years old are busy making macaroni necklaces, scooping slime, and dancing to the Wiggles (proving that their appeal truly is universal).

Outside, and in another hall and varied rooms around the church, the scene is the same. Tutors hold court amongst little groups of Sudanese people, and they are all occupied with studious activity.

Classes run between 10:30 and noon, with a free lunch provided at the end. The afternoon is devoted to an extension program (where school children can play soccer, do drama, or learn to cook), and also a slight role reversal where the Sudanese teach their Australian tutors Arabic. Its just another example of the manner in which SAIL operates as a small community.

“Don’t you think it sounds a bit self serving, a bit ‘do gooder-ish’? Well, that’s what I thought, but it’s such an emotive experience, it’s just all the little things that are just so enlightening.”

Kate Jackson is trying to rationalise her commitment to the SAIL program, which has lasted for three months and is planned to continue indefinitely. Aside from the hour and a half of teaching time, Kate also picks up bags of unsold bread from a local Baker’s Delight which she brings to be distributed amongst the refugees. The task of bread collection is shared with Toby Mendelson, a university friend who she dragged along one morning, but who now comes of his own accord.

“Yeah, it’s completely amazing, it’s absolute chaos but it feels really good,” says Toby. “I’m learning heaps about myself as well- you really have to draw upon all your communication skills and all your different resources.”

No prior training is required of SAIL tutors, only that they come on a tour to get an overview of the program, and then work out where they want to help. The library has many books for the teachers themselves, and plentiful resources and activities. If they ever get in to trouble, there is a large portion of the SAIL website devoted to tutor resources, even offering an interactive ‘Ask an Expert’ facility which facilitates interaction with academic experts.

After a few weeks though, most seem to get the hang of it.

“I thought they were absolute stars the first time I met them,” said Gavin, of his two students Athiel and Mariam. “They went through the alphabet so quickly I was ready to get ‘em started on the proper books.”

The problem was, they knew the alphabet song from memory, but had no idea what it meant or what any of the letters sounded like.

“Now they know the alphabet, and they are spelling, they’re doing really well.” says Gavin.

Sometimes though, the language barrier can prove too much, as Gavin discovered when he went on an excursion to the Footscray pool.

“They were running riot, running everywhere and jumping in the water. The guard was waving his hands and having a heart attack, but they thought he was excited and urging them to go quicker! I had to learn the Arabic for ‘don’t run’ really quickly.”


Arabic is the official language of Sudan, a country located in the north of Africa and decimated by over twenty years of civil war between the Government of Sudan, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

The civil war has resulted in the deaths of two million people, one out of every five southern Sudanese people. Currently the US Department of State estimates there are nearly four million internally displaced persons, and up to half a million refugees in the neighbouring countries of Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As many of these people have been confirmed as genuine refugees under the guidelines set out by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), they are eligible for visa subclass 220- an offshore humanitarian visa. This entitles the recipient to permanent residency, onshore family reunification, and eventually citizenship. For many of the Sudanese refugees in Australia, this will be the first time they have ever held citizenship papers.

The SAIL program is constantly aware of the Sudanese community’s past, but the focus is very much on the future.

“Some of the kids have had a rough time, all they know is the bloodshed and brutality of the refugee camps,” warns Matthew to the new volunteers he is taking on a tour. “We try to give them stability and nurturing, but if they are doing anything unacceptable [like hitting others] then you must try to stop it.”

When David Marr and Julian Burnside talked at the Melbourne Writers Festival this year on ‘Rocking the boat: writing about refugees’, they spent a considerable portion of the discussion on the efforts of the Australian government not to allow any photos to be taken of the refugees (ostensibly for the refugees’ own protection).

“What it does is allow the refugees to be a nameless group, to be different. You could believe that people would throw their children overboard if you couldn’t see their faces and realise they are the same as you,” said Burnside.

On the SAIL website, Matthew and Anna Grace state that the reason for the program’s existence is that “if, through no fault of our own, we were made to leave our country, our family, our house or our community… we too would be cared for and educated in the place that received us.”

It is a noble aim, and one that has grown dramatically since its humble beginnings two years ago.

Then, a phone call was made to Melbourne University asking for some assistance in English tutoring for a family of Sudanese refugees. Pretty soon more refugees heard about the help and started turning up, leading Anna Grace and Matthew to start asking friends if they might be able to help. It has developed from there.
Kate knew about SAIL from one of her university friends “who used to show up on Monday talking about these kids and some church. I just thought it was a religious thing.”

Since Kate has joined she has brought Toby, and some of Toby’s friends are considering helping out as well.

“Yeah, it’s a bit weird isn’t it,” said Toby, when questioned about the widespread knowledge of the program. “Something about it just seems to spread, everyone seems to know about it.”

Today, tutors travel from as far away as Ocean Grove and Ringwood to be involved with the program, organised into synchronised car pools and bread pickups by the tireless co-ordinators.

Just as word spread amongst the tutors, so too did it spread amongst the Sudanese. There is even one recorded incident of a student showing up within twenty-four hours of arriving in Australia. Word is spreading, and people are willing and able to be involved.

“We have a problem…” explains Matthew, visibly excited and proud about what he is saying. “Its just that for the first time ever we have just about enough tutors to have one on one available for all our students.”

He pauses for a second, and smiles contentedly.

“Actually, its kind of a nice problem to have!”

Its another Saturday morning, and Kate is very worried because Abuk, one of her students, is ill. She has a small bag in her purse that she continually opens to spit into, then shuts it apologetically.

Atong, her fellow student, grins and make motions indicating a large belly.
The Arabic dictionary is quickly consulted.

“Hemmil?” asks Kate, pointing to Abuk.
Atong doesn’t understand the word until it is pointed out on the page.
“Ahh, heh-mil!” she confirms, giggling again.

Abuk is newly pregnant, and she is suffering from morning sickness. English lessons are quickly forgotten as the three girls start gossiping about babies and marriage. The two students can’t believe Kate is not married at the age of 25, let alone not having any children. Both students are aged 20, and Atong has three children, compared with Abuk’s two.

“Nooo,” laughs Atong, gesturing again to Abuk’s clutched belly. “Not two, not now! Now three!”
Abuk groans and spits into the bag again.
Today’s lesson, like so many others at the SAIL program, is not so much about English, but about life itself.

Refugees’ names have been changed to protect their privacy.

Further information about the situation in Sudan can be found at http://sora.akm.net.au

Other volunteering opportunities in the community can be researched at the GoVolunteer website at www.govolunteer.com.au

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