Inspiring Camp For Refugees
[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 3, No. 10
8 December - 12 January 2009 ] By Genevieve Costigan
While most Sudanese in Australia associate camps with the trauma and dispossession of civil war, a group of University of Melbourne students have attempted to give young newly-arrived Sudanese refugees the new perspective that camps can be a place of fun and opportunity.
A two-night camp called Gone Bush at Marysville, north-east of Melbourne, was run by five University of Melbourne students with the aim of giving 20 Sudanese refugees aged between six and 19 years the chance to experience a range of activities from archery, orienteering and bush-walking to Australian cooking and visiting a local sculpture garden.
Economics and Commerce student Rose Tsen, a participant in the project, notes that before they designed the camp the student team researched the experiences of Sudanese refugees in Australia in an attempt to discover the impact of traumatic displacement on schooling, language and family.
“The aim of the camp was to put these young people in a comfortable place where they could practise English, spend relaxed time with other kids and give them inspiration and opportunities to explore a world they’re not used to.
“The Sudanese refugees told us they really loved the camp – they were very enthusiastic, very comfortable with each other even though some of them hadn’t met before, and now they are close friends,” she reports.
The students became involved with the Sudanese community through their membership of the University’s Student Ambassador Leadership Program (SALP) which promotes the work of the Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning program (SAIL) to students.
The SAIL program is a volunteer-run not-for-profit organisation which offers free services to the Melbourne Sudanese community, including free English classes, information sessions, excursions and camps.
SALP’s Gone Bush project recently won a University of Melbourne Dreamlarge Knowledge Transfer Student project grant which helped with the cost of the camp.
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