BALLARAT grandparents are joining the fight against the treatment of children in refugee camps.
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Local support is growing for the group Grandmothers against Detention of Refugee Children, which was formed in Melbourne last year to raise awareness of the treatment of children in refugee camps run by the Australian government.
Co-founder and chairman Gwenda Davey said it was a reaction to the callousness of the government and opposition’s approach to refugees.
“We were horrified at the damage being done to these children,” she said.
“People might listen to grandmothers (more than other groups), we’re respectable.”
Dr Davey has a background in early childhood development and said conditions in the camps on Nauru and Manus Island were intolerable.
“Particularly in Nauru, it’s no place for a child. There are children who are not learning to crawl, because there’s nowhere for their parents to put them down,” she said.
Dr Davey lives in Melbourne, but her two grandchildren live in Ballarat.
The local effort to create a groundswell of public anger will be headed by Cath McDonald, who has also worked in the child and family sector.
“These days you think, what can you do? In the ’60s we marched and got the Moratorium (to end the Vietnam war),” she said.
“What if it was our grandchildren over there?”
Dr Davey said raising awareness had proven to be effective with the current government. “They’re very sensitive,” she said.
“The way they became hysterical about (Human Rights Commissioner) Dr Gillian Triggs shows how sensitive they are.”
Ms McDonald and Dr Davey made it clear the group was not attached to any political party.
The group had its first rally on Saturday in Melbourne, attracting hundreds of purple-clad grandmothers and FROGS (Friends of Grandmothers) to the CBD.
It already has chapters in Geelong and Bendigo and hundreds of members in Melbourne.
The Ballarat Grandmothers against Detention of Refugee Children will meet for the first time on Saturday, March 21 at 2pm at the Ballarat Central Uniting Church on Lydiard Street South.