By Rachel Flaherty

 MELBOURNE - Akoch Manheim did not want to kill people and he did not want to be killed.  Although just eight-years-old, he saw a chance to escape from the murderous war around his village in southern Sudan and he took it.

That was in 1990.  Today, Manheim is completing the first year of a degree in International studies at RMIT University while working as Director of the Sudanese Lost Boys Association of Australia (SLBAA) based in Melbourne.

By Dan Garang Marrial
  Melbourne - Noel Surur and his wife Florence – an inspiring and hard-working Sudanese couple - took the plunge and set up a grocery business in Noble Park, south-east of Melbourne in 2006. They had a simple philosophy: “let’s try and see if it works”.

By Billy Ferguson

 MELBOURNE - The western suburbs of Melbourne are home to a growing number of Burmese refugees fleeing the oppressive conditions of refugee camps in Thailand, Malaysia and India following the Burmese authorities violent suppression of protesters in August 2007.

By Ramla Hashi

 MELBOURNE - I was young, naïve and I still feared the wrath of my mother.

I had two things working against me that year:  Firstly, I had come straight from an Islamic school after knowing nothing else. Secondly, I was starting High School -- not any high school but Northcote High! And, just when I was finally getting used to the utter and complete lack of Islamic teaching in school, is when it happened.

By Jehna Paigan

 MELBOURNE - The future for “Little India”- Melbourne’s acknowledged spice capital located in the outer suburb of Dandenong - is in the balance because of multi-million dollar plans to redevelop the area.

By Natasha Cooper

 MELBOURNE - They call their soccer team Lil’ Brazil, they dream of one day making it to Rio to meet their football idols but for now its Melbourne.

The girls of Lil’ Brazil come from Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Lebanon and even further across the globe, Malaya. But they proudly wear the green and gold colours of the Brazilian team strip in their matches around Melbournes’s northern suburbs.

The team is the brainchild of Hala Abdelnour of the Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre (SMRC) in Preston and Coordinator of a leadership group called the Ethnic Youth Council (EYC).

By Colm McNaughton

 MELBOURNE - In my first radio documentary Awakening from History? the listener is invited into my own story as a way to enter the vexing question of intergenerational trauma in the North of Ireland.

In what follows, I examines some of the difficulties encountered and the strategies pursued both in the field and the studio to producing this piece.

The documentary was aired on the Radio Eye program on Radio National, and won a Walkley award for best radio documentary in 2008.

By Mohammed El-Leissy
 MELBOURNE - Most people think Muslim men have four wives”, jokes comedian Sema Kuryuk as she does her routine to the packed hall “they don’t! They have one wife….she has four different personalities!”

By Sam Van Zweden

 MELBOURNE - Trying to understand what it means to be a young Muslim woman in Australia brought people together from all parts of the community on a recent Saturday afternoon in Melbourne. 

An audience of about 30 people met at the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre on Lonsdale Street to discuss issues affecting young Muslim girls.

The Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Coalition presented the last show in their series of plays entitled ‘Listen To Us!’ on November 22^nd.

By Aidan Craney

 MELBOURNE - Newly arrived Burmese refugees are so frightened of police that they do not report crime, ask for help or even talk to police, a senior multicultural liaison officer, Sen. Const. Joey Herrech, said today.

 

‘Difficulties with the Burmese communities are related to the long-term civil oppression imposed by the government and law enforcement in Burma.’ he said.