Showing heart for refugees

Andrew Hall, Canberra

Multi-coloured hearts have been signed and decorated with refugee-rights slogans and images to create the "field of hearts".

This growing project provides a vehicle for people to symbolically "show their hearts for refugees". It is a public expression of support for the plight of refugees, and opposition to the Australian government's heartless treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. It also highlights the call to end mandatory detention of asylum seekers and for the granting of permanent visas to all temporary protection visa holders.

The field of hearts was officially launched in Canberra by the ALP speaker of the ACT Legislative Assembly, Wayne Berry, on World Refugee Day last June.

Since then, nearly 2000 hearts have been decorated and displayed at ACT public libraries, school fetes, church events, community markets, protests and street stalls.

School classes studying migration and refugee issues have held heart-decorating workshops and more are being planned by Catholic schools across the southern highlands and south coast NSW.

Two Canberra Body Shops have featured hearts in shop windows and act as a collection and drop-off point. South Australian Greens activists and the "Circle of friends" launched their own version in February and decorated hundreds of hearts at the recent Fringe and Womadelaide events.

Others participating include Amnesty International in the ACT, the Illawarra Refugee Action Committee, refugee networks in Newcastle and Queensland, and Project SafeCom in Perth.

In Melbourne, on April 4, 3000 hearts will be held up in Federation Square in a "Sea of hope". The hearts will also appear in Canberra at the National Folk Festival and a June 20 World Refugee Day event.

Activists hope to gather all the hearts for a mass installation at a rally on the lawns of Parliament House before the federal election.

[Visit <http://www.refugeeaction.org/hearts.htm> or phone Claire Bruhns 0401 325 943 or Andrew Hall on 0438 624 744, or email <clairebruhns@webone.com.au>.]

From Green Left Weekly, March 31, 2004.

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 577