Three hundred community members gathered at Gosford Waterfront on Monday, September 7 to communicate willingness to welcome those seeking refuge.
The Gosford event was prompted by the Sydney Get Up Light The Dark event and organised within 24 hours. Ms Joanne Merrick of Central Coast for Social Justice said: “We have a group on Facebook that’s called Central Coast for Social Justice and that’s a place where we meet and converse on political announcements and global situations, fact check and arrange events.”
“We also liaised with Circle Movements who did the promotion,” she said. Ms Merrick said that the age group attending ranged from babies in prams to the elderly, with the 300 person headcount only including adults.
Community members started arriving at 5:20pm where children assisted setting up the space. “We set up some Buddhist prayer sites and coloured balls at the waterfront and had people walk past and join us then help with the set up.” A petition table was set up to clarify what the gathering was about and Ms Merrick shared an encounter she and her husband had with a refugee on Father’s Day, five years ago.
“A gentleman sat beside us. “He was a refugee, a father, a husband and a worker.” Ms Merrick said that they had many similarities and conversed so easily.” “We acknowledged that his journey to the park bench had been much more complicated than ours,” she said.
The event also included a poem written by someone in detention and closed with those who attended singing John Lennon’s hit, ‘Imagine’, whilst they watched the sun set.
“Some sat quietly and some made friends or found friends,” Ms Merrick said. Ms Merrick said that the event “was to honour the people who are seeking asylum and also to honour the people overseas who are welcoming these people, taking them into their homes and countries.”
The event was also said to create a space for people to process their feelings and their thinking on the global refugee crisis and for it to be a family friendly event. “I don’t hope for more tragedy,” Ms Merrick said, “but this is a healthy and safe way to respond and to hope for new answers.”
Interview, 8 Sep 2015
Media release, 8 Sep 2015
Joanne Merrick, Central
Coast for Social Justice
Journalist, Victoria Power