By Kath Gannaway
“In the end, people just being people is what will break down barriers.”
Ellen Rowatt’s comment was the underlying theme of a morning tea hosted by Warburton Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR) at Nancy’s Cafe in Yarra Junction on Saturday, 22 April.
Ms Rowatt said sharing food was a culturally universal thing to do and a good way to start a broader and important conversation.
“If people have contact with each other, we will just form normal human relationships, then the politics have to shift,” said Ms Rowatt, who initiated the morning tea after meeting Eritrean refugee Dr Melika Eldin from AMES at a forum in New South Wales.
Dr Eldin who came to Australia from war-torn Eritrea in the late 1970s, works with AMES Australia which provides services and support to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
She and other refugee women from around Melbourne prepared a feast of delicious and aromatic foods from different African cultures to share, and, as predicted, the food and the traditional coffee ceremony provided an excellent base for conversation and building friendships.
Dr Eldin spoke about the different dishes, their ingredients and origins and explained the coffee ceremony.
She said Australia was home and spoke of her settling in Warrnambool, the place the family calls home.
Thanking the members of Warburton RAR and other community members for the warm welcome, she said they would now call the Yarra Valley home as well.
Ms Rowatt said they planned to build on the idea of sharing food as a way of connecting people and would look at making it more accessible to the Upper Yarra communities.
Contact Warburton RAR through their facebook page at www.facebook.com/RARWarburton/ and Healesville RAR via email – rar.healesville@gmail.com .
