Victoria’s Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has unveiled plans to build a new hub in Dandenong, which is home to the state’s highest population of people seeking asylum.
Bates Smart and Garner Davis Architects have been brought on as pro bono partners to design the centre.
ASRC’s original centre in Footscray supports more than 6,000 people seeking asylum each year, but there is no equivalent service in the south-east region.
The organization had been running a small makeshift centre in Dandenong for a number of years providing education and employment services, but earlier this year it was forced to close the Dandenong Centre due to water damage caused by a flood.
But the centre had been inadequate long before that. “In reality, the ASRC staff were also feeling so overwhelmed because they desperately needed to expand the local services to meet the needs of the community,” the centre said in a statement. “People [were] coming to the staff hungry, asking to sleep in the carpark, needing a lawyer or a doctor urgently.”
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) Dandenong hub, designed by Bates Smart and Garner Davis Architects.
The new hub, which is already being built, will help support these people, bringing together multiple service organisations under the one roof, including legal advice, English classes and education programs, a food bank as well as daily community meals, employment support, casework, housing support and access to a health clinic.
“Our dream is to create a place that feels like home – a safe and welcoming place where people come to learn, grow, socialise and connect with their local community”, said Kon Karapanagiotidis, CEO and founder of the ASRC.
The design team envision the centre as acting “much like a local neighbourhood village.”
“We’re lucky to be involved in this project as a way of helping on a basic human level and that makes it a project that you feel something for,” said Terry Mason, associate director at Bates Smart.
“When we get this space working, the support that the ASRC is able to provide to the community is immense, that’s why we are involved.”
The ASRC does not receive federal government funding, and is relying on the support of the community to help complete the building. The hope is to have the centre operating by early 2021, which will be the 20-year anniversary of the organization.
For asylum seeker and Dandenong resident Nasreen [not her real name], the centre will be essential.
“For me it’s like a home,” she said. “It’s a place of safety, security, somewhere we can find help, speak to a person. I’m hoping it will be re-open as soon as possible. This is the only resource in Dandenong for the many asylum seekers in this area.”
