Tag: fair share

Permaculture

The power of diversity: together we’re stronger

The power of diversity: together we’re stronger

Almost two decades ago we started a project to build a garden with asylum seekers in Sydney. We had almost no money, a tiny space, and lots of shade. We, as organisers, didn’t have the skills we needed to construct our garden. Everything seemed stacked against us. But we had a lot of ideas and we had plentiful free materials, glass bottles available from nearby pubs and cafes that were just being thrown out. When we asked the asylum seekers and refugees if any of them had the skills we needed, they did. And together we worked to build our beautiful garden, for almost no investment, with lots of resourceful skilled people making it a reality. Together we came up with creative ideas for what to grow in shade and up walls and in the end, we had a beautiful safe space in which to sit and chat, grow a little food and just be. On the surface, it seemed like we didn’t have much. But when we really looked we saw we had an abundance of all that we needed, we just needed to be open to the possibilities. #valuediversity#valuethemarginal#permaculture

marigold flowers Misc

Caught on the wind

At the asylum seekers centre garden it’s hard to get people to come along. They can been so traumatised by their experience fleeing, but also by what awaits them when they come here — years of detention, they say it’s like a gradual dying — that they don’t want to go out. If I can convince them to get to the garden, I often see a shift.

I see Mo from the middle east, and wave. He is at the end of his asylum process, awaiting a reprieve from the minister; his last and only hope. He is internalised, caved in on himself. Wrapped in a blanket of his own trauma and pain, he hardly speaks a word. I have to ask him a million questions before he answers one. So I learn not to ask. Sometimes even ‘Do you want to come to the garden?’ is too hard a question. His face screws up, lost in the confusion of his trauma-locked mind.

So I just say, ‘we’re going to the garden’. And sometimes he picks up his backpack and he comes.

Within 10 minutes of having his hands in the soil, cutting dead leaves off a plant, clearing weeds his energy shifts, and the most surprising thing happens: he starts to speak, of the foods that he ate at home, of the plants he grew, of his mother and how she would care for him. And then an even more surprising development: he sings.

The songs sound ancient, and I don’t understand the words, but they speak of journeys. Meandering though sad phrases, uplifting to happy family times. I am quiet in the background, pulling the grass from our veggie beds, entranced.

What more can I do to help him and so many others in this time of crisis? I can write more letters imploring the minister, adding to my ASIO file; already a foot deep. But more tangibly I can stop asking questions and just listen. I can provide a safe place in my garden, and I can revel in the moments where their beautiful voices catch, and for a short time, freely dance on the wind.

Image of farm house with long grass in the foreground Permaculture

The Hutch

Finally, a taker for the hutch comes to me through Marketplace. The hutch is free, but she offers $25. I say she can have it. Maybe she didn’t read the ad. It’s free.

She asks if I can deliver, she has heart failure, and cannot come. No problem, I’m driving past anyway. Even though the hutch is large and awkward I can shift it on my own, perhaps with the help of a passerby. She calls me luv, and says to take my time. I’m guessing she’s an old lady.

The day is sweltering, and smoke from the bushfires cloaks everything, it’s hard to breathe. ‘I’ll give you $30 luv,’ says the lady on Messenger, ‘because of all this heat and this smoke luv, you shouldn’t be out in it.’ Still I only want a clear room, and she’s doing me a favour, this hutch has taken up space for 3 months.

I arrive at the house. A beaten up old cottage, lead paint flaking onto dried yellowing grass. I approach the screen door, a sign on it says visitors should inform next of kin, if there’s no response. I am taken aback.

She comes to the door, a large woman, not much older than me, face puffy and red, and skin terribly sore and peeled. She offers to help, but I ask her to wait inside.

As I drag the hutch inside I notice very little furniture. A small dog scrambles at her heels. She says thank you luv, thank you for coming in this awful smoke and heat.

She has $30 scrunched up in her swollen hand, and pushes it into mine, I push it back, ‘no that’s not necessary’, but she insists, putting both hands around mine, scrunching them with the bunched up bills. Drawing me to her, she pulls me into a big hug and tears fill my eyes.

Photo credit:
Dan Meyers