Red Cross event

We have decided that a good way of reducing our tax bill is to make donations to charities which we would like to support.  Conceptually this is another form of taxation but we minimise our contribute to Government expenditure with which we disagree (such as our taxes contributing a tiny amount to the salaries of Senator Poor Lean and Senator Malcolm Roberts).  We consulted a friend with good knowledge of suitable bodies and were recommended to donate to Australian Red Cross (ARC).  So we did and as a result were invited to attend a presentation on their Immigration Detention Monitoring Program.

This was in their Victorian HQ on Flinders St.  In the foyer they had a great play area for kids and ...

.... a most interesting cabinet of curiosities.

I focused on this sample of knitting because it looked like Arctic wear.

I don't think this card was directly related to the balaclava!

The table and screen  for the presentation.

The presentation was very interesting and the staff who spoke were right on top of their material.  My summary of it was that the Red Cross has a Memorandum of understanding that they are able to speak to detainees and assist them with communications and access to services.  Their visits to facilities are undertaken by staffers and volunteers.  There are currently about 1,000 detainees, in contrast to 14,000 at the systems peak.  Some of the people have been in detention for 5 years or more.  The long times are mainly due to difficulty in finding somewhere that the people can be sent.

All up, this seemed an excellent project.

This linocut was very interesting, and I will follow up with our contact to find out more about it.  Google Lens was not helpful, suggesting it was something to do with the art of the Torres Strait which I think unlikely with a Platypus depicted bottom left.  I shall pursue this with our contact

I presume these are the names of the artists, appearing in the lower right of the work, but Dr Google was not helpful in giving information about them.