Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Ali's story of finding asylum


Note to Friends of Australia21 from asylum seeker project leader Bob Douglas

You are almost certainly familiar with our crowd funding website www.pozible.com/a21asylumseeker for the asylum seeker project. We are using it to raise funds for an initiative which is now well under way, to publish a series of essays from some of Australia's leading thinkers on the asylum seeker issue.

A small video of a successful asylum seeker has been today put onto the crowd funding website and we would firmly encourage you to examine it and consider boosting the funding amount pledged for this project. The video has been produced by one of Australia21’s Directors and a young Honorary Advisor both keenly aware of the lack of compassion in our current policies. They are passionate about adding the voices of asylum seekers to the public debate so that the community begins to demand more humane procedures for people driven to leaving their own country in search of safety.

Our crowd funding website target has already been reached but will be running for another six days and we are hoping to exceed it by at least $2500 which would help us to move on to stage 2 of the project; to bring together a roundtable of experts to discuss the ideas contained in the essays. Please let your friends know of the opportunity to be involved in a national conversation about finding solutions to our shameful treatment of asylum seekers.

There is a wide view in the community that we can manage this issue more effectively and more humanely than we are doing at present and we believe that what we are doing will help that process.

Bob Douglas
Project Leader
Tel 02 6253 3138