Appeal to help Sudanese family

Australia’s CEO Challenge has recently received an urgent appeal for assistance from Chisholm Inc, a Brisbane domestic violence refuge.

The appeal is specifically for a Sudanese family who arrived in Australia in April 2007, and have been residing at Chisholm since July 2007. The family consists of a woman and three of her children, aged between 8 and 14 years. The family have witnessed unspeakable atrocities and experienced significant trauma while in their volatile war-torn country.

Before coming to Australia this woman endured the death of her husband and two eldest sons, killed in chilling circumstances in Sudan. She was then tortured and is still suffering the physical and emotional effects of those experiences. While awaiting entry to Australia through the humanitarian program, she and her family lived in appalling conditions in a refugee camp in Uganda. During this time she lost her 16 year old sister to a snake bite.

She was eventually brought to Australia by her brother in law but he quickly became very abusive and violent to the point she needed to escape to the domestic violence shelter. While he was bringing the family to Australia, the brother in law left the fourth and youngest alive child behind, a seven year old girl. She was left in the refugee camp with friends and has now been separated from her mother and siblings for nearly 10 months. Needless to say, the family are further traumatised by this separation.

Chisholm is actively working with the Department of Immigration and other services to unite the family as soon as possible. Once the department approves the unification, it will cost between $3000 and $4000 to fly the child and an accompanying adult to Australia. The family has no capacity to acquire this money as they send all their extra money to Uganda to pay for the child’s needs.

Chisholm has started an appeal to raise this money for the family. All donations are tax deductible and will go directly to this cost. In the words of Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody, from little things big things grow. Donations of any size are appreciated.

For more information, please contact Vicki on 07 3266 4824 or chisinc@bigpond.net.au. To donate, you can send a cheque/money order or make a direct deposit. Please send cheques to:

Chisholm Inc.
PO Box 163
Lutwyche QLD 4030

Source: Australia’s CEO Challenge