Griffith's branch of Rural Australians for Refugees is ramping up activity as election season approaches, pushing to increase awareness of the refugee crisis to both voters and candidates.
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Liz Humphreys said that the group had seen increased momentum this year, holding regular monthly meetings and preparing events and community engagement activities for the next year.
"One of the things we're doing is gearing up for the forthcoming election to get the message out, that we'd like to see some change," she explained.
"A lot of the focus of our meeting was about preparing for the coming effort. We'll do things like have a table at the Palm Sunday market. That's traditionally a day when advocates for refugees do some campaigning."
She emphasised that the group was apolitical, concerned solely with policy.
"One of the things we hope to do is to meet all the candidates for our electorate and find out what their policies are in relation to refugees."
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Along with pitching for campaign, the group will be running another regular film night at the theatre - one of their most popular awareness events.
This will be the third film night the group has held, with the last two drawing in over 100 guests.
"It's one of our biggest events of the year and it's a bit of a fundraiser as well. There's an effort called Operation Not Forgotten which is trying to relocate refugees on Manus and Nauru to Canada,"
"It costs about 20,000 dollars to do the relocation. So far, I think about 20 people have been relocated. Some of our surplus funds go towards that," Ms Humphreys added.
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The group is currently pushing for an additional 20,000 humanitarian visas for Afghanistan refugees.
"A blanket to give 20,000 visas to refugees from Afghanistan who are most at risk from the Taliban ... It's very interesting now cause we're about to have another refugee crisis. The focus is going to be taken away from the dreadful situation in Afghanistan."
Later this week, the group will donate two copies of the books "Seeking Asylum - Our Stories (The Voices Australia should hear)", and "Escape from Manus" to Griffith City Library in an effort to help raise community engagement with the refugee situation.
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