As this group of gutsy grannies can attest, it’s never too late to stand up for the causes you care about. Meet the Grandmother’s Against Detention of Refugee Children.
In September last year, Dr Gwenda Davey, AM, stood on the steps of Melbourne’s St Paul’s Cathedral and delivered an emotional address about the plight of asylum seeker children in Australian-run detention centres. She particularly stressed the psychological damage being done and the fact that children are being held for “an unconscionably long time”.
“What if it was our grandchildren in these hopeless, unhealthy places? Our hearts would break,” she said, fighting back the tears.
This was the official launch of Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children, a movement that had begun six months earlier with an impassioned conversation around a kitchen table.
“We were so outraged by what was happening we had to do something,” recalls the group’s co-chair Clare Forbes. And so they did.
Having emailed every grandmother they could think of, a meeting was held at the Uniting Church in Fairfield. “We put out 20 chairs and 70 people came wanting to be involved,” says Forbes. “We brainstormed ideas, came up with the name and decided to organise ourselves into federal electorates.” By the time the group launched in September, numbers had grown to 200. A year on, they’ve swelled to well over 1000.
Their message is a simple one: ‘It isn’t right’ and combined with their ‘Free the children’ mantra, it has captured the hearts and minds of grandmothers in nearly every corner of Australia. “Many of us are people who’ve supported children over two generations. We couldn’t imagine how terrible it would be to have our own grandchildren and children in detention,” says Forbes, a grandmother of four.
At the last count, 118 children are held in immigration detention facilities within the Australian mainland and 87 are held in detention in Nauru, where allegations of rape, physical abuse, self-harm and staff misconduct are currently the subject of a Senate inquiry.
“The stories coming out of Nauru are terrible and we’re particularly concerned about the children there,” says Forbes, who like Dr Davey has a background in child development. “ But our aim is that all children in detention – both offshore and on the mainland – be released with their families into the Australian community, and unaccompanied children into an appropriate, caring community setting, so they can be looked after and flourish.”
Taking inspiration from The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo (set up to find the ‘stolen’ children of the Argentine Dirty War), these grannies are more likely to be seen marching on the streets in support of their cause than holding bake-offs or quilt-a-thons.
Decked out in their trademark purple scarfs, they’ve flocked to rallies such as those organised by the Refugee Advocacy Network on Palm Sunday in March and for World Refugee Day in June, waving banners and shouting slogans. The group even has its own anthem Billy Lids – rhyming slang for ‘kids’ – penned by comedian Tracy Harvey for its Melbourne Ports chapter.
“Grandmothers all over our electorates are holding meetings, stalls, pop-up protests and giving out postcards calling for an end to the detention of refugee children for people to post to politicians,” says Forbes, who actively encourages others to volunteer, if not for this cause then for something else they feel passionate about.
“It’s very important to go on caring and being part of the community,” she says. “By volunteering you’re in with a chance of making a difference. It gives us the opportunity to meet with wonderful people and it certainly ensures you’re not sitting on the sidelines – it’s enlivening.”
She cites other benefits, too, that can help to counteract some of the inevitabilities of getting older. “Just by staying informed, for instance with legislative changes, you have to keep the brain cells going, and my computer skills have also improved.”
So if there are things you don’t like, or agree with, about something our country is doing, Forbes says writing emails and speaking out on social media is a good start. “And if you’re not very computer literate there’s always a pen, paper, envelope and stamp – many politicians do reply,” she says.
For her own part – and that of the other grandmothers she represents, their primary motive is clear, “We’d like to be able to look our grandchildren in the eye when they ask ‘What did you do about this?’”
Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children welcomes new members, both grandmothers and ‘Frogs’ (Friends and Relatives of Grandmothers). Email grandmothersref@gmail.com to get involved.
This story first appeared on former NRMA site Livingwell Navigator in Sept, 2015.
