THE word “impossible” is for other people, not for Protais Muhirwa.
The Sunnybank parishioner welcomed dozens of people in the makeshift classroom of the old convent that he and others had converted into Active Refugee and Migrant Integration in Australia five years ago.
ARMIA was first covered in The Catholic Leader in early 2016 and since then the mission to teach English to refugees and migrants has grown into a range of community services from counselling to sewing.
The mission celebrated its fifth anniversary on February 28.
These past five years had been “very stormy”, Mr Muhirwa said, and there had been lots of challenges but “the Gospel can become possible thanks to people with big brains and big hearts”.
“The word ‘impossible’ seems not to exist anymore where there is willingness, where there is determination, where there is faith and where there is obligation,” he said.
“So all this has happened thanks to amazing people who made lots of sacrifices who believed in our vision, who believed in making a difference in empowering the least advantaged compatriots.
“Five years has been very long, very rewarding, and we look forward to the next five years, which will be stormy as well but the impossible will be possible again.”
Through it all the volunteers relied on nothing from government and had lifted hundreds out of welfare dependence; politicians had been invited to the anniversary and the ARMIA volunteers looked to them with expectation.
“Unfortunately … over the last five years the money going into refugees has contracted significantly at the federal level,” Member for Moreton Graham Perrett said.
“You have done great work with not much at all and it’s been volunteers’ sweat and blood that’s made lives be changed.
“The (Federal) Budget that’s coming up in May is going to be an even tighter Budget; I’m telling you that because our tourism is collapsing, our exports are collapsing at the moment, we’ve got bushfire costs …”
Help from government was a while off yet, it seemed.
Among those at the event was Mazin Gorgees, an Iraqi man who had suffered significant wounds from sniper fire in 2007, and had been accessing the ARMIA National Disability Insurance Scheme program.
His wounds made breathing difficult.
“Because one lung (was) damaged, now my life is better than before because ARMIA (and) NDIS support me,” he said.
He said ARMIA was like family who supported him and worked with him, and that during the year he had spent with the group, he had become “very happy”.
“Thank you for everything,” he said.
The anniversary came with culture too.
Rwandan dancing and drums, a belly-dancer and, of course, the Australian National Anthem were staples of the day, as well as stand-up comedy from one of ARMIA’s students.
Also there was long-time patron and Sunnybank parish priest Fr Dan Ryan, who provided land for ARMIA years ago.
He said the story of the ARMIA building had always been with volunteers, first with religious sisters, and ARMIA continued that tradition.
“It’s a wonderful country and you need to be able to speak English to participate in the life of this country; it’s a great country,” Fr Ryan said.
He praised ARMIA’s work to raise the lives of refugees and migrants.
