Cultural craft helps aging refugees integrate

Karen refugees in the Victorian city of Geelong are immersing themselves in their cultural roots through traditional skills like basket weaving.

For ageing refugees, a new life in Australia can be difficult and even depressing.

One Victorian agency says it's the elderly new-arrivals who are too-often neglected, with most programs aimed at families, children and single men.  Now it's reviving an intricate art to help some older refugees feel at home.

Karen refugee Sar Aw Lay, 86, is fit in the mind and the body. But not even a career as an elephant trainer or more than a decade in a Thai refugee camp can erode his enthusiasm for the basket-weaving classes he now supervises at Geelong refugee agency Diversitat.

But it hasn't always been the case.

Diversitat worker Robyn Martinez observed the octogenarian descend into depression in the months after he arrived in Australia. She says he would simply sit in his Geelong home and gaze out the window with little motivation.

“He expressed that he was very lonely and he was isolated,” Ms Martinez said.

“He said he had lost himself he wasn’t part of anything anymore and maybe he shouldn't have left Thailand from the refugee camp.”

Sar Aw Lay mentioned basket-weaving was a familiar activity prompting Diversitat to purchase the materials and the small community of aging Karen refugees got to work.

Ms Martinez said the introduction of a cultural and age appropriate activity transformed the collective mood of the aging Karen and Kareni refugees.

“We didn't know it was like a secret strength they all had," she said.

"They rushed to the room where the materials all were and quickly made things and we even had products in two hours, we were like 'we've been depriving them of something, they're so good'.”

Diversitat chief executive Michael Martinez said aging refugees have been neglected, and the success of the basket weaving activities was proof.

“There should be more emphasis on the fact that the refugee mix involves older people and there is often a lack of understanding of their needs,” he said.

The hand-woven baskets, containers and floor mats are sold at a local craft-market with half the proceeds funding new materials and the other half donated to the Thai camps many of the refugees once occupied.

For Sar Aw Lay, a one-time jungle-living elephant trainer, it’s just a taste of Karen culture, but it’s enough to keep him happy in his new home land.

“He really enjoy - he really happy to share his ability with his friends,” he explained through an interpreter.