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Zc3 Zine #1                  October 2002
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In this month’s issue

PROFILE on Barbara Brewster’s Buddies bringing hope and humanity to
Australia’s refugees.
IDEA the joy of possibility
QUESTION yourself
GOOD STUFF to keep you informed and inspired



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PROFILE

While the media is filled with WAR, WAR, WAR, it’s timely to take a moment to
look at the lives of those who have lived it already, and came to Australia with
dreams of a peaceful life.
Recently I had the great privilege to meet Barbara Brewster and find out what
she’s passionate about  - making life a little easier and hopeful for Australia’s
refugees.

California-born Barbara Brewster is an amazing person. She is the author of two
books, Down Under All Over, that chronicles her first travels around Australia in
the late 1960s, and Journey to Wholeness, which is her journey to personal
change and recovery from Multiple Sclerosis. She has studied gymnastics in
Denmark. She has been a restaurant hostess in Afghanistan. She has clowned
with Patch Adams in Russia. She’s an actor and counsellor, as well as writing,
meditation and ESL teacher. She runs workshops bringing laughter and joy back
into people’s lives.  And she has also brought together a group of people known as
the Buddies on the Sunshine Coast.

Buddies is a Buderim-based group who advocate for just and compassionate
treatment of refugees. The Buddies are involved in all levels of making a difference
for refugees: Lobbying the government; educating their communities about the
refugee experience; debunking myths about asylum seekers; corresponding with
refugees in detention; providing support for those with legal appeals; sponsoring
and hosting families, individuals and soccer teams (!); and holding picnics for the
Buddies and the people they advocate for to get to know each other, provide joy
and hope and trust.

So how did all this happen? While visiting the SC Uni’s Multicultural Festival last
year, Barbara had a conversation that totally changed the way she saw
the ‘refugee crisis’. Barbara learned that while the refugees (asylum seekers) are
waiting for their applications to be processed (and this can take years!) they are
unable to work, get education, or have access to healthcare. These are things we
regard as basic rights and yet we aren’t affording them to those who need them
most.

Barbara got together a group of people from around Buderim who were interested
in changing this and they formed Buddies.

To read more about Barbara and Buddies check out

www.dropbears.com/b/barbarabrewster/

To find out more about Buddies or to join its amazing mailing list, drop a line to
Barbara at
mailto:
barbinoz@bigpond.com

It’s Refugee Week this week…What do you need to know to understand what’s
happening in Australia now? Who can you tell?




**
IDEAs to move you …         POSSIBILITY

If you’ve ever wanted to change something, whether it be the colour of your
curtains or improving your health or the way refugees are treated in this country,
then the notion of possibility would have played a pretty crucial part in whether that
change came about.

So many times in making decisions, we focus on the reasons why we can’t do
something. Now, if you focus on what you can do, then you start to make some
progress. If you focus on what’s possible (even if there’s a snowball’s chance in
hell that you’ll do it) then you really start to open things up, and the big changes
can occur.

For example,
For all my adult life I’ve never thought of myself as a potential homeowner. Sure I
have the dreams of the shack near the beach where I work and live a very carefree,
simple life. But it was always very distant, and I would NEVER actually own the
place. Well, recently a couple of my friends who thought similar things about their
future accommodation bought a couple of blocks of land in Tasmania overlooking,
yep, the water. And they are just about to move down there and start building…

And suddenly it was all possible… (And that was before I talked to my brother the
architect who shared his “Home Ownership for under $50,000” plan with me…)
And so now I just know that it is going to happen… which is pretty sweet…

And this is just one example. We’ve all got dreams, aspirations, ideas that we put
on the backburner until ‘someday’.

This month, act as if it is all possible. Be a thorn in the side of the nay-sayers. It’s
surprising what a difference it makes to your everyday life.




**
A QUESTION….or three…

1. What one thing have you relegated to ‘someday’ status?

2. Now imagine it is POSSIBLE.

What’s it look like? What are you doing? Who else is there? What are they
saying? What are you saying? Describe every little detail. What’s it feel like to be
doing, having, being this way?

3. For the next week, live as if it is happening. What do you need to do to keep
aware of this feeling?

BOOK
Want to find out more about this Possibility stuff?  Check out The Art of Possibility
by Rosamund and Ben Zander. Available at your local library and your local
bookshop (paperback). Thanks to Kathy Whines for reminding me how great this
book is.


**

GOOD STUFF to connect with….

Oz Positive. The Australian Networking Quarterly.

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather…. There I was last month,
putting together the concept and content for this little ezine when what should I
pick up down the road but a newspaper that focuses on connecting people and
focusing on the positive. Gob-smacked? Yes. Excited? Extremely.

Oz Positive’s main point is to “highlight alliances beween people, and real,
sustainable, grass-roots achievements, mostly around Australia. Its guiding
principle is ‘Instead of cursing the darkness, why not light a candle?’ Gandhi.”

Inside this 20 page newspaper you’ll find stories covering environment, racism,
money, enterprise and more, all with a positive- and action-focus. The great thing
about Oz Positive is that most articles have contact details so it’s really easy to
find out more or get involved. So it truly does help connect people.

What I really like about it is its independence. So many social justice publications
are just promotional pieces for specific groups, yet OzPositive retains an
admirable amount of diversity.

Oz Positive is published quarterly by a dedicated group of volunteers. Its first
edition came out two years ago when Editor/Publisher Catherine Baker received a
philanthropic donation to make it possible.

If you’d like to check out the latest copy, let me know and I’ll send one to you.
They also have a website <www.ozpositive.net> .

Dalai Lama’s message
With all the talk of war in the media, it’s refreshing and inspiring to read the words
of the DL on the commemoration of September 11.
Check it out at  <www.tibet.com/NewsRoom/message1.htm>


Oxfam - What’s in your coffee?
Just to give you something else to worry about <g> as you have your third cup for
the day… As part of Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign, you can go and
play ’coffee tycoon for a day’. Point being… Well it seems that many coffee
growers are no longer receiving enough for their crops to cover the costs of
producing it…which means no food, education, or medical help for the farmers and
their families… Find out more and let the coffee producers know what you think of
this at….<www.maketradefair.com>
(It’s also a very funky website for those with an interest in web design)


Brisbane Social Forum
The Brisbane Social Forum earlier this year at the Powerhouse was a great event
for many diverse groups and individuals with an interest in social justice and
change to get together and share information, get outraged, and get inspired to
act. I came away with so much from the weekend, but mostly I remember
watching Michael Franti performing and thinking, “This guy has it so sussed. He’s
delivering the emotion of everything we do through his performance AND he’s
placing it in a social context”.

Their next event is on 26TH October - ReActivate will focus on the WTO's
corporate globalisation agenda and participant report backs from the recent Earth
Summit in South Africa.


The Brisbane Social Forum is on again in 2003. If you’d like to get involved in this
amazing (and international) event then check out <www.brisbanesocialforum.org>

RAW
Have you checked out the RAW (Real Adventure Women) programme that’s just
started in Brisbane?? It’s fantastic. You can take the controls and fly a plane for
fifty bucks!… or be part of a Dragon Boat team…. Or go abseiling…
bushwalking….rockclimbing….sailing….tai  chi’ing…waterskiing…outrigger
canoeing… surfing… skydiving….  there is so much, and most of it is really
affordable. Pick up a program from your local (BrisbaneCC) library or check out the
website
<www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/things_tosee_anddo/rec_leisure_program/raw.shtml>


Till next month…Have a great life.

Trish Weston


*****

Zc3 Zine is published monthly by zoom c3.

Zc3 Zine’s objective is to inspire, encourage and foster connection between people
to create radical personal and global change.

Zc3 Zine is written and collated by Trish Weston. Everything in it is her opinion,
with a smattering of facts to make it hold together. If you have any suggestions or
comments please feel free to email mailto:zoomc3@email.com

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© Copyright 2002
You may copy, forward or distribute Zc3 Zine if this copyright notice and full
information for contacting zoomc3 are included. Mailto:zoomc3@email.com


phew…now I can go to the beach