SAIL Program Newsletter

And we thought 2002 was a big year for SAIL! Little did we know what pleasures were ahead for the good ship SAIL and the calm waters into which we were heading. In fact, SAIL 03 taught us a lesson; the English language is sorely lacking in meaningful superlatives. The following reflection on the year that was makes this perfectly clear.

SAIL 03 was marked by the same immense growth and change that we thought would have been a hallmark of 2002 alone. We started the year with 78 volunteer tutors, one librarian, three culinary SAILors, two measly administrators (that was us!) and about 115 Sudanese SAILors. By year’s end we have 145 volunteer tutors, four librarians, eight culinary SAILors, 17 administrators and over 230 regular Sudanese SAILors. In monetary terms SAIL’s budget blew out by double to a $6,000 operating cost for 2003. Not bad for an organization providing 350 lunches every week, a fine bank of resources and over 9,500 hours of English support annually… even if we say so ourselves?! But mere numbers paint a thin picture of SAIL 03. What changed for SAIL in ’03 was a lot more than the numbers.

New projects, all of which were immensely successful, made 2003 a significant year in many respects for the SAIL Program.

1. SAIL Xtend sprung to life in earnest after a trial run at the end of 2002. Thanks to the energy and commitment of fifteen SAIL Xtend Leaders we had a swathe of activities available to Primary and Secondary School- aged SAILors each week. The Xtend program included short-courses in Australian Sign Language, Cooking, Drama, Art, Music and Soccer. The response from the participants was universally positive and the question, “Are we doing activities?” became a staple feature of lunchtime. (This question now rates second as the most asked after the question “Where’s my teacher?”) All in all, the Xtend activities more than fulfilled their purpose of exposing the SAIL kids to activities that they would not have otherwise had the opportunity to try. We thank the SAIL Xtend Leaders for their creativity and flexibility as the Xtend program moulded itself to the SAIL way of working.

2. Although the five week cycle is a tough one to grasp even for the nutters who created it (that’s us again!), it too has worked sublimely. As part of this cycle and new to SAIL 03 were the Community Talks. These talks provided community members with access to officials and experts in various areas of concern to the Sudanese SAILors as they settle in. We were thrilled with the high and consistent level of attendance at these sessions. We also had a good laugh each time when the allocated hour turned into two and even three hour Q&A sessions as the experts were grilled about issues ranging from contacting relatives in refugee camps in Africa, to reporting crime, to domestic violence, to infant welfare and so much more. Dovetailing into these Talks were the Tutor Talks. We are always grateful to those tutors (and it is a vast majority) who take the extra time on a Saturday to skill-up and improve the individualised service that SAIL offers. The Tutor Talks included presentations on bullying, literacy, the “refugee experience” and many feedback and input sessions on how things could SAIL even more smoothly. Our thanks go to Katerina who did such a superb job organising the Week 5 bonanza and ensuring that SAILors have access to the best in the field always!

3. E-SAILing got a major upgrade in 2003. After a complete overhaul and serious facelift, the website is now a comprehensive online home of the SAIL experience. New to SAIL 03 was the Tutor Resources section which houses oodles of worksheets, advice and access to the SAIL Panel of Experts via Bulletin Board. Tutor Resources is now the most hit-on section of the website registering about 130 hits a week! We are also very proud that the much-loved Can’t Come sheet gave birth to an online offspring in the form of the Can’t Come E-sheet. The big move online has made all SAIL material available to the burgeoning team 24-7 and from anywhere in the world. For all of the move online we owe enormous thanks to Matt Adair who has been as reliable as junk mail in a hotmail account.

4. Although it would probably be unnoticed to almost all SAILors, the administrative and culinary sides of SAIL have undergone significant change and reorganisation. Thankfully this has moved the dependence of SAIL from the reliable shoulders of a few to the reliable shoulders of many. The admin team sprung form nowhere in the middle of the year and now boasts a phenomenal team of people all working from home all over Melbourne and obscured completely behind the scenes. Lin keeps the accounts, Tanya manages an ever-growing car fleet of 85 cars, Marg and Rachelle maintain immense databases of tutors and students respectively, Mary maintains the email address book, Christine photocopied like paper was going out of fashion and Paula and Melissa became the official SAIL shoppers for supplies and food respectively and Prue and Lastari have done superb work canvassing for tickets as part of SAIL About. Last, but far from least, we have to acknowledge Sue who, although keeping an incredibly low-profile, is the strategic genius behind many of the major decisions at SAIL this year. Sue has PR (and pleading) down to a very fine art and has provided the can-do drive that has seen many projects reach completion and always well-under budget! This group of people do the slog work for SAIL with very little rewarding community “face-time”. For this and their tireless efforts in assisting all SAILors SAIL we extend our most sincere thanks.

5. Saturday SAILors are perhaps also unaware of the fantastic support being offered by the SAIL Home Help Program. This Program was launched on the sly late in 2002 for the same family who were the first SAILors ever. In 2003, due to repeated requests and dire needs in the Sudanese community, it has grown exponentially but remains intentionally small. Nine families now have the benefit of SAILor support in the home once a week for three hours. The Home Helpers have needed to be resilient and reliable and without exception they have been throughout 2003. Despite its low profile, the Home Help program continues to support the single-mum households where, when and in ways in which it is needed most. We thank the Home Helpers from 2003 for making themselves available in the most isolating of the SAIL mini-programs.

6. SAIL About continued on its merry way in 2003. We had excursions to the ballet, football, basketball, zoo, theatre, movies and to see TV shows being filmed, all on a weekly basis. Like SAIL Xtend, SAIL About well and truly fulfilled its purpose of exposing members of the SAIL community to areas of Melbourne life that would otherwise be out of reach. A major boost was received to SAIL About at year’s end with an enormous donation (the largest by three times in SAIL history) to run camps- eight already paid for over two years! We look forward to inviting all SAILors to these free family holidays and activities extravaganza in 2004 and 2005 very much! The first of these camps to see in the new year 2004 was a huge success down at Cottage by the Sea at Queenscliffe.

7. At the end of 2003 we also proudly launched the SAIL Bursary Program. The seven SAILors in the first intake were all delighted to receive the Bursaries to cover $300 of school expenses as they enter Years 11 and 12 in 2004. This new initiative deserves thanks to all those who attended the first-ever SAIL Fundraiser Film and the Melbourne Anglican Foundation who provided the funds to make this project possible for 2004.

For us the big highlights of the year were the weeks where all SAILors enjoyed SAIL-only events en masse- the 2nd Birthday and the celebrations that came with it, the memorable and moving musical exchange between Akon Deng Chok and Paul Kelly and the materialistic fiasco that was “secular Santa’s SAIL sojourn”. These events, apart from being highly enjoyable in their own right, reminded us of how simply baffling it is to now have so many SAILors involved as enthusiastically as they are after such small and unspectacular beginnings only three years ago.

This is all well and good and, admittedly, it is nice to have it all listed in one place for the sake of reflection but…. SAIL is not and has never been concerned with the big picture success or, at least, not to the same extent as it is concerned with answering one very simple question: what would I want? This is the question to which everything SAIL is the answer. For us at least, an involuntary departure from all we knew and loved would leave us wanting in many ways. We would want a friend, a mate, a confidant and a guide. We would want someone to look out for us, to give of their time to us and to share our joys and troubles. We would want to know what it is to really live in our new home. We would want access to the absolute best that our new home had to offer for the arts, sport or social. We would want everything for free, especially when paying for even the most basic things is an unwelcome challenge. We would want services to come to us because negotiating new systems is as exhausting as finding them. But most of all, we would want someone to give a damn about us and to care, to really care, for what we wanted out of our new start. This, at its most basic, is exactly what SAIL strives to do and what, in 2003, was achieved.

SAIL is nothing more than an organization of people for people. The real highlights and successes for us for 2003 were where this was made most obvious; the hugs that greet so many SAILors of a Saturday, the stories of the level of concern that tutors show for the well-being of their student and vice versa, and the incredible camaraderie that develops between SAILors of all ages and backgrounds every week. For this, we thank each and every SAILor for continuing to work for the ideal of inclusiveness upon which the SAIL Program is singularly focussed. Thank you all for your contribution; whether it be big or small, it was, without doubt, significant.

May SAIL 04, with all the changes it too will bring, be as joyous a journey as was SAIL 03. We hope you will join us for it!