Printed with compliments of Cr Charlie Pisasale’s Electorate Office

Support Links Agenda, Feature Story, Contributions & Enquiries

December 2010 -

Edition 10

For Enquiries contact:

Co-ordinator: Stella Gibbs

Ph: (07) 3281 6852

Mobile: 0408 816 856

Contribution to Newsletter:

If you would like to advertise a

function, festival, workshop, Art

Exhibition, CD, book or you

would like to share some

interesting anecdotes, stories,

poems, jokes and news items,

please contact: Editor: Astrid Tholens

Ph: (07) 3202 2291

Email: astrand1@optusnet.com.au

For archived Newsletters visit:

www.issuu.com/astrand

Support Links Multicultural Group

Leichhardt & One Mile Community Centre (Youth Centre)

Cnr Old Toowoomba Rd & Denman St, Leichhardt

Ph (07) 3812 1270

Support Links Multicultural Group - NEWSLETTER

Support Links AGENDA

Monday’s 12pm - 2pm

Support Links group sessions

will close down from Monday 29 November and re-open on Monday 8 February. For

further enquiries, contact

Stella Gibbs.

The Support Links Newsletter will recommence first week of February. Please send in your

stories, articles etc. by mid-Jan.

Awaken the Dream Symposium –by Astrid Tholens Last Sunday I attended the Awakening the Dream-Changing the Dream Symposium and for the first time in many years, I decided not to take any notes. In hindsight I’ve regretted it, as there was so much information which I now can’t remember. But mostly what it was about couldn’t be recorded. It was something to be experienced. I had watched many videos on Transition Towns, Peak Oil and Permaculture on You Tube. But this was a performance of splendour; videos that were designed with love and consciousness, for us to experience an ‘awakening from the trance’ of our Industrial dream for ourselves and for this earth! We were all both shocked and nurtured; taken to the depth of despair and lifted up to hope and renewed possibilities. And the greatest gift of all was to share it with an excitable, passionate group of individuals who had already made an effort to be involved in initiating a change and yet were so deeply affected.

“To bring forth an environmentally sustainable,

spiritually fulfilling, and socially just human presence on this planet.

as the guiding principle of our time.” If you are interested in attending a Symposium, visit: http://awakeningthedreamer.org

ABN 76432600317

We've learned to fly

the air as birds,

we've learned to swim

the seas as fish,

yet we haven't learned

to walk the Earth

as brothers and sisters."

Martin Luther King

A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS GREETING This is the time when we can all celebrate We put on our different costumes Eat different food, celebrate differently But we all feel the longing of our heart To feel peace in our own lives. Dignity, Peace & Prosperity - Prem Rawat

www.millstreet.ie/blog

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Festivals & Concerts, Music & Song, Plays

Calendar of Concerts & Festivals December 2010 3 Dec ,Friday from 7:30am to 9:00am FREE 9th Annual Community Breakfast Celebrating International Volunteer Day * Official welcome by Mayor Paul Pisasale Ipswich Mall , Brisbane St, Ipswich FREE ENTERTAINMENT 3 Dec, Friday from 6:00pm to 9:00pm Twilight Tasting * Showcasing food & wine tastings, live entertainment, fantastic shopping, lucky door prizes! Dancing Tiger Studio, 203 Brisbane St, Ipswich. Tel 07 3288 7077 5 Dec, Sunday at 6:30pm to 9pm Classic Concerts in Historic Homes * Corelli’s Christmas Concerto & Vivaldi’s Summer * A reading of Bille Brown’s adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carol’ * Medieval & Renaissancee Carols ‘Gooloowan’, 43 Quarry St, Ipswich Tickets: $15 adults; Child (under 16) free; $20 family fractaltheatre@optusnet.com.au Tel 07 3812 8308 Mobile: 0435 020 926 11 Dec, Saturday at 7:30pm (Ipswich) 14 - 17 Dec , Tues-Friday at 7:30pm (Brisbane) 21 - 23 Dec, Tues - Thurs at 7:30pm (Brisbane) Under Milkwood, by Dylan Thomas * Presented by IPAC & Fractual Theatre * Directed by Brenna Lee-Cooney. Ipswich: Dancing Tiger Studio, 203 Brisbane St, Ips. Entry by donation. Brisbane: Old Museum Building, Cnr Bowen Bridge Rd & Gregory Terrace, Brisbane Tickets: Adults $22 Concessions $16 Bookings at www.BRIZTIX.com Tel 07 3103 7437

Are you interested in work experience in Theatre? *Set Building, *Costume Making *Administration (marketing, publicity) Help is needed with the play Under Milkwood and other future plays. Enq. Fractal Theatre: Tel 07 3812 8308 or 4035 020 926

U n d e r M i l k w o o dU n d e r M i l k w o o d by Dylan Thomas Produced by Fractal Theatre & iPAC.(The Ipswich Performaning Arts Centre Inc)

This Arts Qld Regional Arts Development Funded production is the first INTERN programme for Fractal Theatre and iPAC. Thirteen young actors have been undergoing training with Helen Howard in

developing Welsh accents, and with Eugene Gilfedder in developing the ‘physical’ Fractal Theatre house-style. Norman Doyle and Niki-J Price (originally from Wales) take on the demanding roles of Speakers one and two. This rich lyrical play by Dylan Thomas perfectly suits director Brenna Lee-Cooney’s aesthetic of layering text and subtext through poetically inspired movement and music. Originally written as a radio play, in this production Lee-Cooney takes inspiration from the imaginings of the listener, and weaves a dreamscape of characters both hauntingly beautiful and mesmerisingly macabre, but at all times deeply human. This ‘promenade’ performance promises to enfold the audience in the work of UNDER MILKWOOD. www.briztix.com

Vintage by Lou LouVintage by Lou LouVintage by Lou Lou Shop Opening on Monday 6 December

at 9 Harlin Rd, Sadliers Crossing

A space where unique and one-of-a-kind pieces

can be found, just perfect for giving that special

someone a Christmas GIFT!

As from this year, we will also be supplying quality

fresh cut Christmas Trees from Harlin Rd. Nothing

can beat the beauty and scent of a real pine tree.

Vintage by Lou Lou Vintage by Lou Lou will also be visiting a number

of local boutique markets and intimate shopping

experiences, including the presentation of A Very

Vintage Christmas at Twilight Tastings, so come

along and join in the fun and festivities as

Christmas is our favourite time of year.

www.vintagebyloulou.com

Louisa Janke: 0403 597 479

Roses & One Teapot

At Vintage Lou Lou Shop!!!

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Education, Art Exhibitions, Films, Writer’s Festivals

Free English Lessons

Free English Lessons are available for all migrants and refugees as well as for visiting students or workers who need extra help. All lessons will be cancelled from

1 December 2010 to 3 February 2011.

If you wish to have lessons during this time

please make private arrangements with

your tutor.

Insanity is doing the same things

over and over again and expecting

different results. Albert Einstein.

No problem can be solved by the

same consciousness that created it.

We need to see the world anew.

Albert Einstein

Refugee Week 2010 - Film Festival

The Refugee Council of Australia, STARTTS & The Pitt St Uniting

Church, hosted the official opening of Refugee Week 2010. It was an

overwhelming success. A crowd of 400 plus attended the combined event.

Overall we were able to raise $1,500 from all these events. As part of the

film festival, 2010 marked the first year of a week long event. This year

we had a series of events held by the likes of UNHCR, Medicins Sans

Frontieres, Oxfam & Amnesty International. The aim of this is to use the

festival as a hub for other charities & NGOs to showcase, fundraise &

educate the public on their great work in the area of Refugee support &

advocacy.

The Australian Refugee Film Festival has the pleasure of

announcing the winners:

Steps to Freedom: Winner of The Best Film of The Night award,

determined by a vote from the crowd on the night. View video

Food Bank: Winner of The Best Australian Entry View Video

These two well deserving winners have each won $250 in prize money.

We hope next year to be able to help out other organisations by

increasing the amount of prize money on offer. www.australianrefugeefilmfestival.org

TRUST YOURSELF Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. Benjamin Spock

Systems die; instincts remain. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover. Henri Poincare.

Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next. Jonas Salk

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant, and has forgotten the gift. Albert Einstein.

www.ideachampion.com/heart

How Many Hands-by Tricia

www.plymoth.org

Brisbane Writer’s Festival

The two BWF bookend events held

in October with Tim Flannery and

David Suzuki were a brilliant

success. Audiences walked away

feeling inspired and ready to

contribute to preserving our natural

world.

Don’t miss the film made about David

Suzuki ’s life: The Force of Nature due

out in 2011. Watch the trailer on You

Tube.

“Suzuki is the greatest environmentalist

of our age....What a life, what an

inspiration.” Tim Flannery

Machines - by Tarek H

Age Four

Photo of hands - at www.ceap.com

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Art, Poetry, Stories

Excerpt from THE SNOW GEESE,

by Paul Gallico

One November afternoon, three years after Rhayader

had come to the Great Marsh, a child approached

the lighthouse studio by means of the sea wall. In her

arms she carried a burden.

She was no more than twelve, slender, dirty,

nervous and timid as a bird, but beneath the grime as

eerily beautiful as a marsh faery. She was pure Saxon,

large-boned, fair, with a head to which her body was

yet to grow, and deep-set, violet eyes.

She was desperately frightened of the ugly man

she had come to see, for legend had already begun to

gather about Rhayader, and the native wild-fowlers

hated him for interfering with their sport.

But greater than her fear was the need of that

which she bore. For locked in her child's heart was

the knowledge, picked up somewhere in the swamp-

land, that this ogre who lived in the lighthouse had

magic that could heal injured things.

She had never seen Rhayader before and was

close to fleeing in panic at the dark apparition that

appeared at the studio door, drawn by her footsteps -

the black head and beard, the sinister hump, and the

crooked claw.

She stood there staring, poised like a disturbed

marsh bird for instant flight. But his voice was deep

and kind when he spoke to her.

“What is it, child?” She stood her ground, and then edged timidly

forward. The thing she carried in her arms was a

large bird, and it was quite still. There were stains of

blood on its whiteness and on her kirtle where she

held it to her.

The girl placed it in his arms. “I found it sir. It’s hurt. Is it still alive? “Yes. Yes. I think so. Come in, child, come in.”

Artisan Wonderland Exhibition Sunday 28 November from 2pm - 4pm Queens Park Environmental Centre Cost: $2 gold coin entry

You are invited to join with us and celebrate the success of the 2010 Artisan Wonderland Workshop

Series. To wrap up a creative year, we are holding a final exhibition of works created by the

wonderland participants.

We invite all workshop participants to bring along their art pieces created during all wonderland

workshops throughout the year - creating together an exhibition on the day. Artworks can be received

from 1.45pm on the day. Pieces can be collected on leaving the exhibition. Please bring a plate of food

to share - tea, coffee & cool drinks will be provided.

For more details: Tel 07 3281 7819 artisanwonderland@gmail.com/ www.artisanwonderland.blogspot.com

Ipswich Contemporary Arts

Network - A collaborative community

of artists supporting the arts in Ipswich.

The Ipswich Contemporary Arts

Network is a group of artists, creative

people, and innovative thinkers who are

or have been involved in art exhibitions,

events, community activities or

collaborative projects with the

SWICH Contemporary Art Space.

Being actively involved and engaged in

the art community creates opportunities

to meet and work with other innovative

and creative people. This is important

in developing artistic relationships and

networking opportunities to discuss

ideas, and to develop, plan and

implement projects that support the

arts, in particular, projects that have

potential social, cultural, and economic

benefits for the Ipswich Community.

Expressions of interest can be lodged

through our Artists & Business

Registers.

Artists will have the opportunity to

exhibit and sell their works at our

Art Gallery, SWITCH, at

191 Brisbane Street at Top of Town.

Leanne Vincent - Gallery Coordinator

Gilbert Burgh - Project Coordinator

theswich.info@bigpond.com

www.theswichcas.com.au

Tel 07 3281 9192

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Printed with compliments of Cr Charlie Pisasale’s Electorate Office 5

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you Don’t go back to sleep you must ask for what you really want Don’t go back to sleep people are going back and forth Across the doorsill where the two worlds touch The door is wide and round don’t go back to sleep J. Rumi

Phnom Penh: Cambodia - Annual Report 2009, The Prem

Rawat Foundation (President Linda Pascotto)www.tprf.org

The landfill district of Steung Meanchey, located on the

outskirts of Phnom Penh, is one of the most toxic

garbage dumps in Southeast Asia. The children living in

the area spend their days scavenging for food and

recyclables. Child mortality rate is 20%.In an ongoing

effort to remedy the situation, TPRF awarded a second

grant to the Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF), bringing

its total contribution to $60,000.

The 2009 grant supported CCF’s programs that benefit

nearly 60,000 people per month. Their broad outreach

programs include: nutritious meals at the Community

Child Care and the Community Centre Nursery; bread and

rice distribution to the community; subsidized rice sales;

nutritious subsidized meals at the Community Cafe; and

nutritional programs at four education centres.

A growing Appetite for Life - Annual Report 2009, The Prem Rawat

Foundation (President Linda Pascotto) www.tprf.org

Pov Som Heng, born two months premature in Phnom Penh,

weighed in at a dangerously low 1.76 pounds. Chances for his

survival were slim. His father scavenged garbage for a living. His

mother did not have enough milk to feed him and had little

understanding of the special care he needed.

Then Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF) heard about the

situation and began providing services, including in-home nursing

visits and a steady supply of high-protein formula and other

supplements.

Pov was one of the first children to attend CCF’s Community

Centre Nursery. His mother visits daily and continues receiving

guidance from the staff on how to best care for her son’s needs at

home. Several months later, Pov weighed in at over 15 pounds. Each

day he grew bigger, brighter, and more curious - lighting up the

nursery with his smile. He may be small, but his appetite for life is

huge, entertaining the staff daily with his uncanny ability to get total

strangers to pick him up and tour the facility, where he delights

everyone with friendly smiles.

Awakening the Dreamer -

Changing the Dream Symposium

R e s o u r c e s

www.awakeningthedreamer.org

www.pachamama.org

www.globalfootprints.org

http://wiserearth.org

www.earthcharter.org

www.un.org/milleniumgoals

www.drewdellinger.org

www.massextinction.net

www.brianswimme.org

www.globalcommunity.org

www.nwei.org

www.oneearth.org

www.gapminder.org

www.global-mindshift.org

http://ellabakercenter.org

www.betterworldshopper.com

www.bioneers.org

www.storystuff.com

www.bethechangeearthalliance.org

www.greenforall.org

Humanitarian Initiatives, Awaken the Dreamer Resources, Photos & Artwork

Launching a new School Teaching Healthier Life Style Habits Watering gardens

Map of Cambodia

Dawn Breeze - Google.com.au/images

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Stories, Poems, Photos and Artworks

WALLS, by Stella Gibbs From ‘A Local Miracle - and other real life stories of survival, benevolence, hope and inclusion by South-East Queensland Women’, edited by Mark Svendsen & Barbara Damska

It was early the 1980’s and our small band of volunteers in the city of Ipswich were weary with the continuing waves of refugees from Vietnam who were constantly coming and needing our assistance. We were still keen to help but our supply of resources was sadly depleted. Affordable housing was scarce at the time. A new family arrived from Hong Kong. Because they had come from the north they had been considered political opportunists by the authorities in Hong Kong and they were denied their rights as refugees. They, along with another family, had been sponsored by an Anglican priest who had been working in the camp in Hong Kong. He had returned to Australia and put in the sponsorship papers but had been sent abroad before the families could be processed. He asked us if we could care for them whey they arrived. The first family consisted of a mother and father and seven children under eleven and an old man whom they had adopted in the camp. We found a house in East Ipswich that they could afford, but it was very shabby. It had not seen a coat of paint since it was built in the 1930’s. The lino was torn and the old newspapers under it were poking out. My friend and I cleaned it as best we could but were embarrassed to put a family in it as we would not like to move in ourselves. The mother, a pretty girl in her thirties who looked sixteen, wandered around the house stroking the walls with tears quietly running down her face. My friend and I looked at each other, embarrassed. We thought we knew how she felt. How wrong we were. She noticed our glances and said, ‘Please, you don’t understand. I am crying with tears of joy. We have walls! We have walls! For the last four years we have lived in a shed that housed over two thousand people. We slept on wire racks five deep. The mattresses were burned to prevent the spread of disease. We had no privacy, no walls. No way of knowing we would ever get out. Please under-stand we are so happy to have walls.’

Old Ipswich homes, unpainted

a lone beetle queen nested in the folds of a brown beret. i signalled to her and her new friend; in her innocence she had mistaken the colours worn by our enemies for the bright shades of this year’s spring.

Childhood Memories 1. From ‘ICE-Poems and Stories’ by Angelica Fremd from a high window i watched spring undress the garden while in the distance the Rhine snaked to the land of chocolate and peace. below, soldiers walked measuring cobble stones with practiced feet. an army of beetles ravaged chestnut leaves, leaving them ragged

The Valley Wind, by Lu Yun www.judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry

Living in retirement beyond the world Silently enjoying isolation I pull the rope of my door tighter And stuff my window with root and ferns My spirit is tuned to the Spring Season At the fall of the year There is autumn in my heart Thus imitating cosmic changes My cottage becomes a Universe. Translated by Arthur Waley

Chestnut Tree

& chestnuts

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Gallery of Photos, Poetry, Artwork, Music

Visit to Northey St City Farm

by members of Support Link.

A thoroughly enjoyable event!

Visit to Northey St City Farm

on 25 October, 2010

by members of Support Links

Going Nowhere, by Astrid Tholens

From walking and going

And moving and achieving

To stillness and music

And longing and breaking

From mountains and seashores

And rivers and sunsets

To no thought and feeling

And loving and praying

From landscapes and combies

And markets and people

To silence and secret gardens

And meditation and quiet

From noise and pollution

Toxins and perfumes

To pure oils and fresh air

And herbs and nutrition

A new life is emerging

A chrysalis breaks open

Its wings are outstretched

Reaching the skies

The Bloom, by Lucy Iman

The Deep, by Lucy Iman

Art Auction from Lucia Iman - Mission “Mele a Hakuweal’

Earlier this year, Lucia auditioned for a life changing

Advanced Vocal Workshop in Hawaii to learn from the

inspiring singer Rhiannon about ‘being connected, working on

skill and improvisation and being a channel for this gift ’.

Sometime later she received a message saying she was

accepted. So, with great zest, she pulled out some of her

drawings and paintings that she had completed over the

years, and decided to put some of her artworks up for auction

for one month, which has now expired. She still has a live

auction planned in Los Angeles to raise further funds for this

project. If you are interested to support her, you can contact

her at tamethenight@gmail.com and listen or purchase her

recent album Tame the Night via www.luciaiman.net.