THE Hamilton Area Rural Australians for Refugees (HARAR) is gearing up for its annual spring garden sale on Saturday, November 2, from 9.30am-12pm on the forecourt of the Hamilton Performing Arts Centre.

HARAR is part of a network of Rural Australians for Refugees that was founded in 2001 by women in the Southern Highlands of NSW, their response to the outrage of the Tampa crisis.

More than 20 years later, it is now an active network of 75 groups and thousands of volunteers throughout rural and regional Australia.

HARAR president, Peter Cook OAM said there was various ways HARAR gives support.

“Basically, you could say the role of HARAR was to try and seek a fair deal for people who are coming here one way or another to get away from horrific situations, probably life threatening,” he said.

“There’s an organisation we support – the asylum seeker resource centre – and it does all kinds of advocacy and practical support for refugees and asylum seekers

“We also provide funds for education through scholarships – we make an annual grant.

“In the past, and continuing, we’ve had a letter writing program to write to people in detention – it’s a pretty lonely kind of existence – whilst in some respects the government has been very generous and good, in other respects we’ve got a pretty horrific record of how some asylum seekers have been treated.

“We do support particular things like we have a lady who works to help Afghan women.

“Any income we get is spread across those projects.”

The garden sale will have a range of assorted plants, seedlings, produce, garden pots, stands and wood turning products for sale.

There will also be a wheelbarrow full of garden products available to win in a raffle.

All funds raised in the spring garden sale will go to support the work of refugee groups in Australia.