The African Australian Network

Abraham Garang has forged an organisation out of sheer will and a little help. He migrated to Australia in 2001 and immediately saw work to be done. Whilst admiring Australia’s multi-culturalism he saw that African members of the community were not reaching their potential.

Born in what’s now known as South Sudan, Abraham spent time in refugee camps before eventually fleeing to the United States in 1995. There he went to high school, gained US citizenship, and began on his path of helping others – working with youth and new migrants to help them find work.

When Abraham arrived in Australia he picked up right where he left off. He saw that the African community had “a culture of feeling isolated”, so he started the African Australian Network (AAN) to try and bridge that gap.

His brief is broad: overcome injustice and poverty, create networks between the African migrants and the broader community and provide training to prepare people for work.

“For you to get a qualification you need to work hard too...if they have difficulties in mathematics, we are there to help them with mathematics, if they have got difficulties with English we are there to help them…so they can become engineers.”

But what takes up most of his time?

“Distributing food is our main thing,” he said. “Dandenong, Ballarat, Shepparton, the north-western region and Melbourne.”

Many families are doing it tough, he says. “Centrelink is not enough…and they have a culture of giving as well – they give money to the church, they give money back home – so sometimes life becomes very difficult for them – but with this food they always wait for Thursday.”

AAN is not a large organisation. It’s run on volunteer hours and Abraham does much of this work himself. But it’s easy to see what drives him. “People who deserve help should get help,” he says.

As if that wasn’t enough, the organisation itself also needs attention. There are many laws and regulations a charity must adhere to - but for small organisations like Abraham’s – there is often no expertise or time to do this internally.

Abraham approached PILCH to get help obtaining DGR status – essentially an endorsement from the tax office that allows organisations to raise tax-deductible funds.

The Australian Tax Office had rejected Abraham’s application for DGR status because his mission wasn’t focused enough for DGR categories. We offered Abraham advice via our telephone service and referred him to Baker & MacKenzie who helped him pro bono.

Abraham submitted a new application which was successful. He says this help has made his job easier. “[DGR status] helps a lot – this is what makes us a legitimate organisation…but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.”

Read more about the African Australian Network at their website: www.africanaustraliannetwork.org.au

To support the work we do to help people like Abraham you can join us on the walk or sponsor a walker.