Addison Road Community Organisation’s Mobile Food Pantry has been out at Belmore this morning, doing deliveries in the rain because of the enormous need for food in the area.
This has been especially the case after the government failed to cover temporary visa holders in its Jobkeeper legislation. It means some 90,000 refugee and asylum-seeker families across the country are at risk with nothing to live on.
The government basically says they should just go home – but they can’t when they don’t have the money to buy tickets, and there aren’t the flights leave on even if they did.
At Addi Road we are seeing these terrible ironies and brutal loopholes trapping people everywhere – and causing all kinds of problems and hardship. Confusion and bureaucratic complication overrule humane and urgent practical actions; a tendency towards macro solutions and big gestures is failing to answer real problems at a community level where so many small charities are waging the real fight to ensure people’s well-being.
Thanks to Addi Road’s Outreach Co-ordinator, Dulce Munoz, we were able to make Good Friday a truly good day, delivering Addi Road’s food relief hampers to 18 families in the Belmore area – as well as helping the Islamic Women’s Welfare Association to get food to its clients.
With most organisations closed for Easter Friday, Addi Road delivered our emergency food hampers with the help of Mums 4 Refugees. Dulce even got her husband to do home deliveries from Addi Roads Mobile Food Pantry. Good man, Gerry! You will get an Easter egg this Sunday for sure!!
Addi Road’s emergency food hampers were boosted by additional baby formula, diapers and crib clothes, and a few chocolate treats, to meet the needs of the many young and struggling families in the Belmore community. And bring a little happiness to them at holiday time as well.
We’ve been developing Addi Road’s Outreach Program over the last year, with the ultimate goal of it serving as a working model for food rescue and food security that can be taken over and managed by our partners in the areas where we operate with them.
Perhaps our most appreciated delivery in Belmore today was to a woman who had a baby this morning at home at 5am, right the middle of this crisis! Happy Easter, and welcome to the world for all its problems. We can still make it beautiful for one another.
#Belmore #foodreliefSydney #IWWA #foodrescue #refugees#asylumseekers #outreach #AddiRoad
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If you would like to make a financial donation to Addison Road Community Organisation, you can do so here:
https://addiroad.org.au/donations/donate-now/