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Refugee and EAL Parents in the School Community
26 July 2018
By Lavita Mossop, Refugee Support and English as an Additional Language (EAL) Teacher, Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, Ringwood.
, Ringwood, has over 70 refugee and EAL families. Our refugee families are mainly Chin from Burma/Myanmar, or transit countries of India or Malaysia. Some refugee families come from Sudan and Iraq. Our EAL families come from many ethnic backgrounds.
Our refugee families bring great strengths: strong faith and spirituality, connections to Church and community, love of family, culture, supportiveness, a process of resilience, and an infectious sense of humour.
At Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, one of our initiatives is Tuesday Meetings. These informal one-hour sessions take place in a friendly, trust-building environment, and create connections and build relationships with our refugee and EAL parents.
‘I like to come and learn about new things here. I enjoy the friends and support at Tuesday meetings,’ said Van Piang, a Falam father from Myanmar.
We discuss home and school cultures, living in Australia and Australian education. We focus on parent affirmation, parents’ concerns, newsletter items, children’s discipline, consumer rights, news items like recalled products, or even study courses.
‘Many things are new for us, it is very important for us to know about them to help our children. I have many difficulties but with God’s guidance he has brought me to this good place, Our Lady’s School and the Tuesday Meetings,’ shared Falam mother, Kim Van Nei.
Guest speakers from the wider community generously share expertise – and sometimes bring interpreters!
‘I improved my English and made friends with other migrant families. I had lots of fun too,’ said Yuming Seng, a Chinese grandmother.
Topics at the Tuesday Meetings have included:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and art, presented by an Aboriginal school parent
- children’s health, childhood diseases, women’s health
- dental health/services (resulting in treatment for a mother who was refused care at a scheduled appointment)
- child-rearing practices, discipline
- cybersafety
- Centrelink benefits, tax implications
- fire safety, presented by the MFB
- the positive role of police by the Police Multicultural Liaison Officer
- educational pathways, presented by a Project Officer from Swinburne University
- healthy lunches, diet, food hygiene, childhood obesity, and food budgeting, presented by dieticians.
‘After Tuesday dinner, we would sit around the table and Mum always shared what she had learned from the meeting and we learnt from her too,’ said Yuming’s daughter, Lifei Zhou. ‘It made us feel much closer to the school and school community.’