19th-25th June is national Refugee Week, when a number of events will be held around Sydney and outer regions "to inform the public about refugees and celebrate positive contributions made by refugees to Australian society". Sounds good to me.
In the next few weeks there are also going to be a few lead-up events, such as the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival being held in each state. The Sydney event is on this Saturday (the 4th) and I'm hoping to head up for it. It's a screening of Moving to Mars, a film about a Burmese family who are resettled in Sheffield after twelve years living in a Thai-Burma border camp. From the trailer at least, it looks as though the focus of the film is on portraying the huge upheaval and subsequent culture shock involved in resettling to another, completely alien country (hence the name). I think this is really interesting, as we often don't get to see or hear about just how difficult it must be for refugees once they are actually given refugee status, accepted into a new country and must begin to build new lives in a completely foreign place.
If you're interested in Refugee Week, or even in volunteering at one of the events, the awesome website 3things will be updating events as it draws closer. (They also have a download of this sweet poster by Shaun Tan, as above.)
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