2011 – the Victoria branch’s achievements – what a year!, vic, Amnesty International Australia

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2011 – the Victoria branch’s achievements – what a year!

Published on 28/11/2011

This year we’ve seen the introduction of community processing for asylum seekers, the government acknowledge the importance of Aboriginal homelands and 200 political prisoners released in Burma.

This has been the result of hard work of Amnesty activists all around the world. In Victoria, our action groups played a big role in these and other human rights successes.

The year kicked off with a recognition of country ceremony at the Victorian Action Centre. The Ivanhoe group, who later won the prestigious June Fassina award, started their year with a challenge to bring their total number of letters written in 12 years up to 20,000. If you want to celebrate the end of a successful year with them, click here to read about their end of year celebration.

The Monash University group started the year strong, collecting the more petition signatures for Iranian women's rights than any other university group around Australia.

The Bayside group, another of Amnesty Victoria’s long standing action groups organised yet another of their fantastic dessert nights in late April on the topic of refugees.

Autumn saw 45 events run around Victoria as part of Candle Day. The Inner South, Brunswick, Carlton and East Central Groups organised a sell out event at the Abbotsford Covenant for 200 people where the keynote speaker, the then National President, Nicole Bieske, spoke of the power of the Amnesty movement. Participants also heard from Kon Karapanagiotidis about the struggles that asylum seekers face.

The RMIT University group celebrated Candle Day in their own way by organising speakers on refugee rights and forming a giant candle on the lawns of the State Library which, despite the pouring rain, was huge a success.

The Castlemaine group also organised a fantastic taste of freedom dinner which was featured in their local newspaper and sold out.

Candle Day also saw the Geelong group, the Nunawading group, Williamstown Footscray group and Warnambool groups get involved.

The Hume Action group also organised a fantastic film screening of Mother Fish and once again bought the issue of asylum seekers to the attention of their local community.

The Victoria University group around this time also organised to give a talk to students at Footscray Primary School about refugee rights.

June and July were busy months for the Victorian Branch Committee who submitted to the review of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

The Hills group warmed up their community in the middle of winter with a trivia night that was, according to those in attendance, “bursting with energy and trivia-inspired excitment.”

July also saw the launch of the Ivanhoe group’s stamp with a “stamp up” the main street and a letter writing evening.

Further out of the city, the Bendigo group, organised a bush dance with 80 people in attendance.

Around this time, the Ballarat group and Melbourne Metro groups formed. We’re most excited about working with these group in 2012 to get more people involved on human rights issues such as homelands.

On the topic of welcoming new people, the every busy Deakin University group recently elected a new convenor and we look forward to seeing what exciting activities they have planned for 2012.

One of the fantastic things about Amnesty is the geographic spread which enables us to have impact all around Victoria, Australia and the world. In November, the Gippsland group organised an open garden event with musicians and proceeds going to Amnesty. The same weekend, the Ivanhoe group was busy yet again raising $1800 through a sausage sizzle at Bunnings.

The Pennisula group was also busy with Candle Day, a trivia night and a Christmas card sale. Whilst the Point Cook, Outer Eastern and Yackandandah groups showed once again that “the pen is mightier than the sword” with their letter writing activities.

Another busy group, the Inner South group organised a fantastic event with guest speaker, Peter Job. Later this year, they’ll hold their annual letter writing event. An event that is not to be missed out on!

The weekend that just went by saw the culmination of a year’s hard work by the Victorian women’s team who organised a film festival at Cinema Nova. More information on this can in the newsletter.

A big thank you to all of our action groups and volunteers, without whom, Amnesty would not be able to achieve the human rights impact that it does.

If you think that you might like to join an action group, give the action centre a call. Action groups always welcome new, enthusiastic and passionate people who want to defend human rights.

To find out about any of these fantastic action groups, please follow this link.