A project to raise enough money for one humanitarian visa for a refugee fleeing Afghanistan has grown far beyond its first imaginings.
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One year ago, as the Taliban took over Afghanistan and people were attempting to flee the country, a group of Gloucester women reached out to Mayee Warren of Old Bar, and asked what they could do to help in any way possible.
Mayee, a retired international public law professional, is a member of ATLAS (Acting Together: Law Advice Support), a network of female-identifying lawyers, jurists and activists with expertise in various facets of International Public Law.
ATLAS operates in private mode through a social media platform and has around 8500 members throughout the world, and all members are tightly vetted.
At the time the crisis was unfolding in Afghanistan, a sub-group of ATLAS formed to establish and operate an informal 24/7 evacuation and resettlement support centre for Afghan refugees.
Members of Gloucester Transitions asked Mayee how they could help. She suggested they could possibly raise money to help Afghan people who managed to evacuate to the USA to apply for humanitarian visas. With each individual visa costing US$500, the group set a goal of the equivalent of AUD$575 to assist in the application fee for one visa.
They did this by running a market stall, selling boxes of donated produce for $20 a box.
"We just got overwhelmed," said Dominique Jacobs, a member of the Gloucester group.
"I think we had 25 boxes or something like that. We ended up raising $4000 for five visas because people were coming up and just totally embracing the idea that we were trying to help people at a base level like that.
"The Gloucester community were so generous in their donations of produce and money and the overwhelming support and solidarity that they had for the people of Afghanistan," Dominique said.
Mayee was astounded by the success of the day.
"This is the power of community. I was just so blown away by this group. There were also others who donated directly to the crowdfunding initiative by ATLAS. With the $4000 raised from the market stall we asked their permission to divert it to set up a small grants emergency fund," Mayee said.
"And from that $4000 we were able to fund the prenatal care of two Afghan women, emergency housing funds for four families, and also part of the operational costs of an online school for women and girls who were not allowed to go back to school after the Taliban took over the country in August 2021."
That online school is what some of the Gloucester women have become involved in after the initial market stall, not wanting to stop after their first success of the market stall.
They started to support Herat Online, a virtual school started on the internet in November, 2021 by London-based Afghan woman, Angela Ghayour. The school already has 3000 students.
Hence TEACHR (Teaching Refugees and Asylum Seekers) was born, a group of seven women from the Mid Coast (Gloucester, Old Bar, Taree and Manning Point).
While TEACHR volunteers may elect to stay up at night to teach, others teach during Australian daytime. The volunteers with formal teaching qualifications act as technical advisors in developing lesson plans. Others look after community outreach and administration.
Dominique is one of the teachers.
"I've got such a big heart for this now. It's the best thing ever, it's so beautiful," she said.
"We teach conversational English to supplement the work of those who teach the more formal 'English as a second language' at Herat Online. 'Speaking English' teachers aren't required to be trained teachers, as Dominique isn't.
"I've never taught English. We went very tentatively into a teacher's message group at Herat Online and introduced ourselves. And the next day, one of the admin ladies came in and said, 'so would you like a class?' I couldn't believe it. What do you do now? I thought, okay, let's jump in and see what happens," Dominique said.
Dominique now has three classes a week, teaching intermediate and advanced English. Some of the students are attempting to attain TOEFL (Test of English as Foreign Language) qualifications required to study at university.
This is the power of community. I am just so blown away by this group.
- Mayee Warren
Running classes isn't as easy as just hopping on Zoom or Google Meet. The internet is frequently unstable in Afghanistan, and there are other issues that they need to be aware of.
TEACHR volunteers follow important humanitarian rules to keep both students and teachers safe.
"'Do no harm' is the top ethical and humanitarian principle we teach and ask our volunteers to observe," Mayee said.
"We also take care to be sensitive to cultural differences. There is a group of Afghan women in Newcastle who act as our cultural advisors. This is to ensure the content or our lessons are appropriate and respectful to Afghan students as well as to our own volunteers.
"I would like to believe that TEACHR volunteers find the experience fulfilling because there is a genuine mutual exchange of knowledge. Our volunteers also learn and experience new things as much as they teach."
To find out more about volunteering for TEACHR, contact Dominique Jacobs on domjacobs@outlook.com.au. For more information on ATLAS visit atlaswomen.org.
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Julia Driscoll
Julia Driscoll has worked as a journalist for the Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Times for seven years. She values the deep connection with community that being a rural and regional journalist brings. Career highlights have involved environmental stories - bringing the plight of the little known endangered Manning River helmeted turtle to the attention of the public, resulting in wide-spread knowledge in the community and conservation action; and breaking the news of the Manning River ceasing to run for the first time in recorded history.
Julia Driscoll has worked as a journalist for the Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Times for seven years. She values the deep connection with community that being a rural and regional journalist brings. Career highlights have involved environmental stories - bringing the plight of the little known endangered Manning River helmeted turtle to the attention of the public, resulting in wide-spread knowledge in the community and conservation action; and breaking the news of the Manning River ceasing to run for the first time in recorded history.
