Welcome to Australia
December 24, 2016 10:28 PM   Subscribe

Australian kids draw 'welcome' artworks for newly-arrived migrants and refugees. Refugee or migrant families who come to Australia are given a welcome pack but while it contains a lot of important information for parents, there is nothing for their kids. So ABC TV's news program for kids, Behind the News, teamed up with non-partisan not-for-profit group Welcome to Australia to fill that need. BtN invited their viewers to draw a picture showing what people love most about living in this country. They received 12,134 artworks, 100 of which will be published in a Welcome Book. Most of the rest have been scanned and compiled into an online gallery at the BtN website.
posted by valetta (18 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Here's one of my faves from a first browse, a Sydney kid welcoming newcomers to Circular Quay with Suggested Travel ItInerary and Rules.
posted by valetta at 10:51 PM on December 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


Oh this is nice. Google Manus Island.
posted by Mike Mongo at 10:56 PM on December 24, 2016


Nice to see how many of the submissions included Aboriginal flags.

I loved BtN as a kid. We'd all fake-moan when the teachers herded us into the school hall to watch it every week, but I think we all secretly enjoyed it. Looks like they're still doing a good job.
posted by retrograde at 11:13 PM on December 24, 2016 [4 favorites]


ABC local radio Brisbane had this Queensland Gives Christmas Appeal

To start a new life, the simplest things are needed; a small, practical gift of an everyday item, or a gift card will go a long way in giving a 'Queensland welcome' and helping make a house a home.

The conservative government hates it when the ABC does things like this. They paid Murdoch and his media villians so much to demonise immigrants, and off goes the public broadcaster doing something nice for them.

Thanks, ABC
posted by adept256 at 2:39 AM on December 25, 2016 [6 favorites]


Not sure this one looks very welcoming.

The connection to Uluru is somewhat obtuse.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:44 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


Not sure this one looks very welcoming.

Have... a... knife... day?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:01 AM on December 25, 2016


That's not a knife.
posted by adept256 at 5:07 AM on December 25, 2016


This is a knife!
posted by CheeseLouise at 5:57 AM on December 25, 2016 [6 favorites]


ABC local radio Brisbane had this Queensland Gives Christmas Appeal

The most racist state in the federation doing something nice for foreigners?

My stars.
posted by Talez at 5:59 AM on December 25, 2016


Which state is that?

Race riots in Cronulla
Race riots in Kalgoorlie
Prisoner abuse in NT
That Bendigo mosque bullshit
Pauline Hanson

I don't know anyone who voted for Pauline. I looked around at my friends saying 'who the fuck voted for her'? They shrug. She's a joke. Not a very nice joke. I think we suffer from what the Americans call being a blue city in a red state.

This post is about doing something positive. Like buying housewarming gifts for someone that just moved into your neighbourhood.

I don't know what your comment is about.
posted by adept256 at 6:43 AM on December 25, 2016


I don't know anyone who voted for Pauline. I looked around at my friends saying 'who the fuck voted for her'? They shrug. She's a joke. Not a very nice joke. I think we suffer from what the Americans call being a blue city in a red state.

Queensland voted enough to send her and Roberts into the Senate so some assholes had to have voted for her. Hell, Queensland gave her over a fifth of the primary vote in the state at one point.

All of Australia is racist, systematically, de facto, de jure, but Queensland consistently takes it to another level.
posted by Talez at 6:51 AM on December 25, 2016


I'll just drop this here then...

(Qld & NSW, neck-and-neck in the racism stakes. Let the excuses flow!)
posted by Pinback at 3:13 PM on December 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


I don't know anyone who voted for Pauline.

If you're in QLD, I bet you do, unless you move in truly hermit like circles.

Mind you, the difference between ONP and the coalition these days seems rely solely on support of a neoliberal agenda. Racewise I'd call it a draw, esp with the LNP in qld.
posted by smoke at 5:06 PM on December 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is a knife!

That's not a knife, that's a spoon.
posted by retrograde at 7:10 PM on December 25, 2016


Ivy's multilingual entry is a tour de force.
posted by valetta at 8:51 PM on December 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


I loved BtN as a kid. We'd all fake-moan when the teachers herded us into the school hall to watch it every week, but I think we all secretly enjoyed it.

Same here. At minimum it meant an hour(?) free of a proper lesson. In hindsight it was much more delightfully quirky than we all appreciated too.

I like the idea of the welcome book. I think maybe for the percentage of kids who come to Australia and have a bad experience early on (no idea if there's data on that), it will let their parents say to them "this isn't all Australians sweetie, it'll get better, look at all these welcome drawings from other kids."

Mike Mongo, we're all well aware of Manus Island. The "offshore processing" policy is deeply unpopular with a large portion of the Australian electorate - but it's not an issue that makes or breaks a vote for either major party, at least for most people. The support for the policy is also bipartisan. What I find strange is that the government has done such a terrible job of explaining what they are actually doing. I recall Tony Abbott on the radio saying "really, the most humane thing is to stop the boats." That's a shit explanation. What he should have said is "Australia has nothing against refugees. We refuse to admit people arriving by boat for a simple reason: it's a deeply risky method of passage and sometimes amounts to human trafficking and we will absolutely not support that. We're not trying to punish refugees, we're trying to disincentivize people smugglers." That would have actually been useful. The last goal - disincentivizing people smugglers - has actually worked. To October 2016 there were over two years of zero boat arrivals. (That's a link to the Liberal Party website, so there's the usual political spin, but AFAICT the data point is correct.)

But of course, the way you treat people if you stow them away offshore somewhere matters a lot, actually. It seems pretty clear the conditions on Manus Island and Nauru have been terrible, and there's absolutely no need for that. It's worth noting the detention centre on Manus Island is scheduled for shutdown, though with no set timetable.

Further reading: the Pacific Solution, Operation Sovereign Borders.

If anyone has links to statistics comparing outcomes for boat arrivals vs. other means of transport, I'd appreciate it, along with any other further reading (if non-partisan and largely factual).

But back to the main topic, this is nice and useful and something to support and encourage.
posted by iffthen at 5:49 AM on December 27, 2016


Ivy's multilingual entry is a tour de force.

Bloody hell. That was a single kid?
posted by iffthen at 5:56 AM on December 27, 2016


Oh and finally, the logo for Welcome to Australia (more legible on the about page) includes the text "for those who've come across the seas". For non-Aussie Mefites, that's a line from verse two of our national anthem:
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.
I've been annoyed by that for a long time now. I understand and can argue legitimate reasons for border control, but you'd be forgiven for, upon learning the national anthem, thinking "boundless plains to share? It doesn't bloody well seem like it."
posted by iffthen at 6:08 AM on December 27, 2016


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