Jesuit Refugee Service

New Director for JRS

The newly-appointed director of Jesuit Refugee Service Australia, Sacha Bermudez-Goldman SJ, says he is looking forward to meeting the evolving needs of asylum seekers within Australia. In August he will take over from the current director, David Holdcroft SJ, who is headed for New England where he will undertake his tertianship. Sacha describes his appointment as a 'welcome surprise'. He is already familiar with this field of work, having worked as a volunteer with asylum seeker and refugee organisations in Sydney and Melbourne. He was also chaplain at the Maribyrnong Detention Centre in Melbourne for a year. He is privileged, he says, to have met and accompanied some extraordinary men and women through these experiences, and hopes this new role will allow him to continue support and advocate for people still seeking asylum. 'The circumstances and needs of asylum seekers and refugees, not only in Australia but also all over the world, are always evolving and changing, as it is the way people perceive those needs', says Sacha. 'There is a lot that I need to learn in order to carry out this new role, but I look forward to the challenge. I feel that this is true for many people as well. We all need to learn and understand more about the circumstances and causes behind the plight of asylum seekers and refugees, so that together we can help alleviate this ever increasing crisis. And the earlier we start learning, the better!'

Order of Australia for Cambodia's JRS Director

he director of Jesuit Refugee Services Cambodia, Sr Denise Coghlan, has been made a Member of the Order of Australia in Monday's Queen's Birthday Honours List, for her service to international humanitarian aid. A Sister of Mercy from Brisbane, Denise has spent more than a decade working with Cambodians, both in refugee camps and inside the country itself. A longtime campaigner against landmines and cluster munitions, she recently took part in the Dublin conference aimed at banning the manufacture of cluster bombs. 'This is a totally immoral form of behaviour to me', she said in an interview at the time with the National Catholic Reporter. The Thai Cambodian border, she said, 'was very, very heavily infested with landmines. [But] cluster bombs were dropped much earlier - 26 million cluster bombs were dropped on Cambodia in the 1970s during the Ho Chi Minh Trail.' These unexploded ordinances continue to destroy lives in Cambodia and neighbouring Laos. Anecdotal evidence shows that cluster bombs stay active for at least 38 years, 'and probably longer in some places', says Denise. 'Millions and millions of bomblets are left [in Laos].' The director of JRS Australia, David Holdcroft SJ, has welcomed the award. 'I was very happy to Denise's name in the honours list in what I call the extra-well deserved category', he says. 'I think Denise's work has always had a breadth where she's linking both direct work with refugees and also some of the causes of displacement like cluster munitions and landmines that she'd campaigned so successfully against. Her work has been so effective within the country and she's much-loved.'

Burma in Crisis

JRS in Australia is accepting donations, along with Jesuit Mission, for work amongst cyclone survivors in the Rangoon and Irrawaddy Delta regions of Burma. The money will be forwarded to local networks and friends working in Burma. Current estimates of the number of people killed in the category four cyclone, which swept through the area on the May 3, vary from 77,700 (Government of Burma May 16) and 101,000 (UN-OCHA) with up to 220,000 people missing and 550,000 displaced. Like all such figures, these statistics only hint at the extent and reality of the human tragedy. Please pray for the Burmese people and help them if you can. Donations can be made by calling the JRS office on (02) 9356 3888 or Jesuit Mission (02) 999558585.

For more information about Jesuit involvement in the crisis, visit http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/ http://www.express.org.au/

JRS Responds to Budget Speech

Jesuit Refugee Service has welcomed changes to the Australian Government’s policy on refugees announced in the recent budget, but has called for further reform of the system. Announced in last night’s budget were a number of changes to policy, including the abolition of temporary protection visas, a feasibility study on the refurbishment of Villawood IDC and the extension of the Community Care Pilot which looks to the needs of people with complex cases and recognises that immigration issues are linked with welfare, housing and other questions, and the lifting of the quota of refugees, with a one-off increase of 500 new places in 2009, and a permanent increase of 750 places in 2009/10.