Human Rights Projects

Australians Against Racism Inc
Australians Against Racism Inc was established by designer Mariana Hardwick and Eva Sallis in October 2001. AAR aims to help change community attitudes that diminish anyone on the basis of race and/or culture and/or religion by promoting understanding and debate through the media, arts, education and the law. AAR focuses on devising and implementing specific projects, or facilitating where possible projects that fall within the scope of its aims. All AAR projects are achieved through volunteers’ time and energy and donated funds, or funds raised from publications. For more information go to www.australiansagainstracism.org

2001 'Faces in the Crowd' TV Commercial
In 2001 a team of skilled professionals made Faces in the Crowd, a TVC scripted by Eva Sallis. It went to air on Human Rights Day, 10th December 2001, and had a season in the Mercury Cinema in Adelaide in September 2002. Australia's first people power commercial. View the TVC here.

2002 Australia IS Refugees! schools competition
In 2002 school children Australia-wide explored the lives and experiences of refugees as a step towards healing the cultural rift created by the asylum seeker debate. The "Australia IS Refugees!" competitions were offered to year 6 and 7 students, and year 10, 11 and 12 students. Judges were Helen Garner, Tom Shapcott, Phillip Adams, Meme McDonald and Libby Gleeson. The competition was devised and coordinated by Eva Sallis. 37 of the stories will be published in a major book Dark Dreams: Australian Refugee Stories (Wakefield Press 2004). Again, this project relied on extraordinary teams of people and donations of time, skills and money. For more information on how it was done go here.

Dark Dreams:Australian Refugee Stories
Edited by Eva Sallis, Heather Millar and Sonja Dechian
For more about this anthology go here. To buy a copy www.wakefieldpress.com.au

2004 "There is No Place Like Home" Schools Competition
On the theme There is No Place Like Home, school children are encouraged to find and interview someone who was driven or torn from their home and forced to begin a new life and make a new home among strangers. Children and young adults will find and tell the stories of refugee or Indigenous Australians, displaced peoples from recent times or from the distant past. The competition encourages the discovery of the meaning and experience of exile or forced dispossession, but participants will also discover how their peers or elders survived and rebuilt their lives.
The 2004 competition will build on the successes of the 2002 experience. Again writers will be given absolute freedom of discovery, opinion and mode of expression. And again, prominent Australian authors will be the judges. And Australians Against Racism will again coordinate this competition entirely on donations of time, money and skills. Would you like your school, your students or your children to participate? If you would like more information on AAR Schools projects, please send Eva Sallis your email address or the addresses of the schools or teachers you know would be interested. info@australiansagainstracism.org