Thank you to Bobbie Waterman and Anna Buch who help facilitate our students’ entry into the Centre, along with Mrs Shira Sebban who drove our students to and from the Centre and accompanied them in their visit with the refugees.

Rabbi Daniel Siegel

Villawood reflections

Zev Steinmann – Year 11

Villawood Immigration Detention Centre is a facility in Western Sydney which detains people who’ve overstayed their visa permit, people who’ve had their visa cancelled, and many asylum seekers who have arrived by boat without visas.

When the opportunity arose for two other students and I to visit this facility with Mrs Shira Sebban who is a school parent and member of the Board, I was very keen. However, I had never even heard of Villawood Detention Centre and I knew nothing about it. I had no idea what to expect upon entering. Was it like a jail? Was it like a gated community? I was eager to see for myself what an immigration detention centre really looked like. I naively assumed that it would be like a small community where detainees could go in and out freely with a few rules.

On the 6 April, Mrs Sebban kindly took Sienna Amoils, Ricky Blank and me to the Centre. When we drove into the parking lot, I saw many high walls with barbed wire, and it looked much more like a jail than a community. The first thing I noticed when I walked into reception was the high level of security. We had to put all of our belongings (e.g. phone, wallet, bag) inside a locker, walk through a metal detector and have our bags of food thoroughly checked. We even saw a woman being drug tested before entering. The guards were very strict and at a certain point aggressively shouted at us for bringing in too much food. Our first destination was the middle security area, and in order to get there, we had to go though multiple heavy glass doors. I felt like I was entering a maximum security prison.

When we finally got to the middle security lunch area, none of the detainees were there. We had to wait around 20 minutes before the guards let them come though to the lunch area. There were around 15-20 of them, all men, and most from Iran, Sri Lanka or other Middle Eastern or South Asian countries. Mrs Sebban introduced us to as many of them as possible and in all honesty, they were some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met.

These people are not terrorists seeking to spread Sharia law throughout Australia, these people are not criminals and they are not coming all the way to Australia just for economic reasons. These people are not safe in their countries, and they just want to live their lives in peace. Each asylum seeker had such a different story and the struggles and hardship they’ve all gone through are things that I can’t even begin to imagine.

Ricky, Sienna and I sat down with an 18-year-old from Iran and we talked about his life, his journey and what it’s like living in Villawood. His story really put things into perspective for me. When we think of 18 year olds we generally think about them stressing and studying for the HSC. But 18 year old asylum seekers and detainees at Villawood don’t have the luxury of an education.

We also spoke to an asylum seeker from Sri Lanka, who was accused of providing assistance for the Tamil Tigers and was therefore in grave danger in his country. He told us that at Villawood he was repeatedly being threatened to be sent back to his country, which for him would mean getting arrested and tortured. Many detainees are living in constant fear that one day they’ll be sent back to their country; others have lost all hope of ever getting out. Some have been locked away in Villawood for years.

During our visit at the detention centre, we also visited the low security area. It was much bigger and there were many more people than there were in middle security. We met people from many different countries, such as Afghanistan, Somalia and even Gaza.

When chatting with a teenager from Gaza, there was no problem when I told him that I used to live in Israel, he even knew the town that I lived in. He didn’t judge me one bit for living in Israel. This really revealed to me that even if there is a war or conflict between two countries, it doesn’t mean that the civilians of those countries have to hate each other. In our society, Middle Eastern people and Muslims can often be portrayed as hateful and violent, however at Villawood, I saw the direct opposite.

Despite all of the horror and oppression the detainees have faced in both the country where they’re from, as well as the detention centres in Australia, they remain very friendly and easy to talk to. Portraying these asylum seekers as “illegal immigrants” and “queue jumpers” really paints the wrong picture of who these people really are. They are seeking asylum in our country, and in my opinion, Australia is more than capable of providing the safety and peace they seek. Instead, we lock them up in Villawood, Christmas Island, Manus Island and many other detention centres which are all payed for by the Australian tax dollars.

Visiting Villawood Immigration Detention Centre really opened my eyes to the kind of people behind bars who are seeking asylum and how unfairly they’re being treated. There’s a vast number of problems with the way Australia deals with asylum seekers, and it can often seem like there’s nothing any of us can do about it. But there definitely is. One of the best things to do to help the detainees is to go and visit them, to bring food and have a chat with them to lift their spirits, to keep them optimistic that one day, things will get better. I’d like to thank to Mrs Sebban for organising our visit and providing this incredible opportunity for us. I will never forget the incredible people I met at Villawood, and I will never forget the things I learnt about the struggles of asylum seekers.

Zev Shteinman, Year 11

Ricky Blank – Year 11

I recently had the privilege of visiting Villawood Dentition Centre with two other students. My visit was confronting and disturbing. During the visit, we visited the medium and low security sectors.

In medium security I met with men that were mentally anguished to the point they weren’t able to comfortably engage in a conversation. There, I met a young man from Sri Lanka who has been accused of being involved in the terror group Tamil Tiger. This wasn’t the case, his brother was involved in the group. The man has been physically assaulted in Sri Lanka, leaving him wounded.

In low security, I met a young man from Gaza. He has been in detention for over four years. I asked him: “When you leave detention, what do you plan on doing in Australia?”. He wasn’t  able to respond, as he didn’t think he would ever be free. By visiting the detention centre and gaining insight into Australia’s detention program it has made me reflect upon the impact governments can have on individuals and their lives.

Ricky Blank, Year 11