The Melbourne-based Asylum Seeker Resource Centre celebrates its 15th anniversary on Friday – a bittersweet milestone.
The independent not-for-profit centre provides support services for recently arrived refugees and asylum seekers including food, legal advice, health services, finding employment, English tutoring and detention rights advocacy.
Founder and chief executive Kon Karapanagiotidis created the beginnings of the centre as a project for the TAFE class he was teaching when he was just 28 years old.
He told SBS News he had realised refugees and asylum seekers in Melbourne were having difficulty getting enough food, so he started a food bank in a tiny premises loaned to him by a friend.
“We got donations of $50 here or $20 there,” Mr Karapanagiotidis said.
“I spent weekends driving around suppliers with my mum seeing how far we could stretch that money.
“A couple of months later, on August 6, 2001, Tampa happened. Soon we had 1500 people turning up to help. We couldn’t keep up with the demand.”
The Tampa incident saw the Australia government refuse to allow the Norwegian cargo ship MV Tampa to enter Australian waters because it was carrying 438 asylum seekers, mostly from Afghanistan.
The cargo ship had picked the asylum seekers up from a distressed Indonesian fishing boat off the coast of Christmas Island and attempted to enter Australia in a "state of emergency".
The incident heralded the start of offshore processing for asylum seeker claims.
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre founder Kon Karapanagiotidis (right) speaking to the centre's volunteers. Source: Kim Landy
Mr Karapanagiotidis, himself the son of refugees, said the centre grew as more people came on board offering to help in different ways.
“We’ve gone from that little food van to helping 3200 people a year,” he said.
“The idea was just seeing a need – people were going hungry in my city - but I had no idea what it was going to become.
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“After I started … providing food, people came with so many other needs. We couldn’t say ‘bad luck’ and send them away.”
He said there was an increasing demand for the centre’s legal services as asylum seekers tried to find ways to stay in Australia.
“On any given morning we can have 20 people in the waiting room just for legal assistance,” he said.
“I would love to be able to assist three times as many people as we’re assisting now.”
The ASRC now employs 82 people and has about 1400 people volunteering in various ways.
Long-time volunteer Joan Lynn was one of those who offered their help after the Tampa incident.
Mr Karapanagiotidis said almost half of the staff had come to Australia as asylum seekers themselves.
Ms Lynn, from Williamtown in Melbourne, said she had volunteered in administration at the centre for 12 of her 14 years and had visited asylum seekers in detention centres for eight years.
She told SBS News the centre approached the 15th anniversary with mixed feelings.
“We always thought that there may come a day when we will work ourselves out of existence,” Ms Lynn said.
“But unfortunately it seems [the system] doesn’t know how to change.”
She said the centre held regular volunteering information nights that were always well attended and allowed them to spread the word about the centre’s work.
Mr Karapanagiotidis said there had been people who doubted whether the centre could be a long-term proposition.
“People were saying ‘this can’t work, this is impossible, this is not going to sustain itself’,” he said.
“The more people told me it couldn’t work the more determined I became.”
He said the centre received no government funding, meaning they had to source their own donations but they were free to advocate for changes to the legislation around asylum seekers and off-shore processing.
One of the original TAFE students who helped Mr Karapanagiotidis found the centre was Sherrine Clark.
Volunteers at an Asylum Seeker Resource Centre food event. Source: Supplied
Now the director of humanitarian and client services, she told SBS News the personal stories of the people the centre helped stayed with the workers and volunteers.
“Over the years there have been so many people, their personal stories touch you to the point where you can’t not do something,” Ms Clark said.
“It might not seem like a lot, but just being there is a way to say you really care and you don’t believe what the government, and the previous government, believe about people seeking asylum.
“For me, this is the most important thing I’ve ever done.”
Ms Clark said centre had managed to thrive despite challenging conditions and changes to legislation and continued to lobby governments over asylum-seeker related policy.
“We’ve had lots of ups and downs and it’s never been an easy place to work,” she said.
“[But] it’s such a privilege to work in this field and learn so much.”
