After living in Sri Lanka through a bloody and unrelenting civil war, Black Hill man Neil Para has seen things he’d rather forget.
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A member of the island nation’s Tamil population, he knows what it’s like to face religious and racial discrimination on a daily basis.
The country was torn apart for decades during bitter fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, a militant organisation based in the northeast of the country.
Alleged war crimes were committed by both sites but, as is so often the case, it was civilians who paid the biggest price.
It’s said more than 100,000 people died in the separatist conflict before it ended in 2009, when the Tamil Tigers were defeated.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has claimed that widespread violence towards Tamil detainees by Sri Lankan forces has continued despite talk of reconciliation.
Fortunately, Mr Para was able to move to Ballarat with his young family a few years ago and has remained ever since.
"We started to live in Ballarat in 2013," he wrote on Facebook.
"In 2014, at the Begonia Festival, few people said hello to us, but they didn't know us.
"But in 2016 many people said, hi Neil, hi Sugaa, and most of them know our kids' names too.
"I am very happy and proud to live in Ballarat. I didn't have this much of a welcome in Sri Lanka."
So how can Ballarat prepare to help settle those seeking asylum?
That’s a question that will be asked at a forum on Friday morning at Ballarat Town Hall's Trench Room from 10am until 11.30am.
Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children will bring Margaret and John Milligan to speak about their experience of helping the Karen people of Burma settle in the rural town of Nhill.
It’s hoped from listening to their story Ballarat residents could learn about what it will take to lead a successful settlement in our city.
Member Carmel Kavanagh called on anyone to come along.
“We’d like to open the eyes of people in Ballarat to see that people around the world are the same, and how well it worked in Nhill,” she said.
“We want to see the same thing happen here.”
For more details about Friday morning’s event, phone Cath McDonald on 0437 185 238.
