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Australians assisting asylum seekers
in detention

 

ASCI is one of the few non-governmental organisations based on Christmas Island that regularly visit people in detention. We are therefore well placed to know the needs and concerns of detainees, and seek to bridge the gap between Australia and asylum seekers, who are deliberately detained out of sight and out of mind of the Australian public.


ASCI is growing!

How can I help?
Supporting ASCI
Thanks to your amazing support ASCI has been expanding in the past few months to encompass more projects and services to assist asylum seekers in detention.

In light of this, we're in the process of strengthening our organisational infrastructure to facilitate this growth and execute our work professionally and efficiently.

Because of this, we haven't had any recent updates since April, and for this we apologise and thank you for your patience and continuing support!

We're in the process of revamping the website and writing an update for the months leading up to August.

Thank you all for your patience and your compassionate support of asylum seekers both on CI and on the mainland - your contribution is changing lives.

To read and save our most recent newsletter in pdf format, click here

The month of April saw a great deal of change and upheaval in both policy and process.

The centres are still incredibly strained from overcrowding, and the transfer of asylum seekers to mainland detention centres is continuing on a consistent basis.

Protection for asylum seekers in Australia has ground to a halt with the announcement on 9th April 2010 that all visa applications by Tamil and Afghani asylum seekers would be frozen pending the reassessment of their country security situation.

On the 18th of April the Immigration Department announed the reopening of the Curtin Detention Centre, an IDC reputed for its extremely poor conditions & human rights abuses during the Howard era.


The current situation on the island has become untenable for the humane and dignified accomodation of asylum seekers; resources are being pushed to the limit and despite the best efforts of service providers to attend to the needs of asylum seekers, many basic requirements are not being met.


ASCI continues to visit all three IDCs on Christmas Island and advocates on behalf of asylum seekers to ensure that adequate attention is drawn to their specific needs.


To read more about the current situation on Christmas Island & the work of ASCI, download our most recent newsletter or click here for more information.

 

We still urgently need letter writers and donations of books, dvds, and dictionaries, as well as people who would be willing to visit asylum seekers in mainland detention centres.

As a small organisation we rely purely on donations that people send us.To all the people who have been supporting the work of ASCI, thank you for your enormous contributions! You are helping to brighten the lives of so many people suffering in very difficult situations.

See our Letter Writing & Donations pages for more information or Contact us if you have any questions.