Hey, Hereni, how are you. I'm good, How are you good? Thank you? Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.
No worries at all. Thank you for this opportunity.
Hareni Rafnakuma is twenty three years old. She grew up in Sunshine in Melbourne.
I was born in Sri Lanka as a Tamil Elam person and I had to flee the genocide that took place in Damil Elam and I went to India as a refugee.
In India, Hareni lived in a refugee camp. She describes an early childhood marked by fear, where going to school was difficult. The fees were exceptionally high and her family struggled to pay. Hareni remembers this one day when she was ten years old. She was hanging around the adults evesdropping on the conversations and she heard them talking about a place called Australia.
My dad was talking to a neighbor about how it was a better place to live in how they were well becoming refugees, and that our family would be better off there instead of in India. We cannot go back to Sri Lanka, and I do believe he mentioned something about free education to the neighbor and that's when I got hooked on. I was like, I wouldn't be a burden to my family at all because my dad couldn't afford to be the feast that got into my head
and I was very stubborn. When my dad was going to leave, I was like, I am coming with you or I'm going to die. That's what I told him to a kid hearing how Australia was a better place and they would treat us better, our human rights would be upheld to a kid, that sounds like a wonderful dream.
And that dream was realized. Hareni made it to Australia and went to school. But what she could never have expected is it a largely unknown feature of our immigration system would stop her from getting the full education she risked her life for. From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM today on the show Hareni Rathnakuma on the promise of life in Australia and why the children of refugees aren't able to attend university. Here. It's Monday,
April twenty one. This episode was originally published in September last year. HARENI, can you tell me about your journey to come to Australia with your dad? It was scary.
It was very, very scary.
It was almost seventeen to eighteen days a worth of journey on the sea. It was short of one hundred people on that boat. There was a bit at the bottom where they would store fishes, I believe because there was eyes too, and that's where most of the people kind of head away when we had to cross the border and we all shared this space and everyone was just throwing up. Most people couldn't even like sit up. It was covered in warmt But because my dad was there,
I knew i'd be okay. I knew he'd be taking care of me, and that's what he did.
And do you remember any of the other people on the boat, did you talk to them?
I made so many friends because there were so many young kids like me. There was a guy that I became best friends with. He and I love to study. That's what we connected over. And what was funny was that after so many years of being separated, we ended up going to the same uni. We reached Coco's Island and the Navy. They came and took us to safety, and I was so joyed. I was very, very joyed. I was like, finally we made it. I was transferred
to Adelaide detention Center. That was after spending a couple of months in Christmas Island, and then they transferred me out. They were like, you're allowed to go live in the community now, and my dad chose Melbourn.
HARENI and her dad were put on a bridging visa, which is what it sounds like. It's a temporary visa where the government can decide at any point what it wants.
To do with you.
You stay on it until you're assessed one way or the other, and you can be deported at any time. Many Tamil asylum seekers are stuck in this kind of limbo. They face some of the lowest acceptance rates as refugees, like the Billa Wheeler family, who were only granted permanent visas after a huge campaign to let them stay. Parini and her dad have been on this type of visa since they arrived in twenty thirteen.
I was eleven when I came to Melvin. I came at nighttime, my second or the third time I've been on a fly and the city looked so beautiful, and I was just so happy to be here. I was put into a primary school right away instead of a language school. I was very proud to be standing there because people had knew about the Tamil genocide that took place, and I was glad know the other people knew. The other people were actually cared. I enjoyed going to school
primary school here. I made so many friends, and again my dad didn't have to pay, so I was thrilled. I was like, oh my god, free education. And I also went to high school here where I finished year twelve in twenty twenty, the year of COVID.
And then you applied for university. Can you tell me about that.
I had applied to Vicuni to study a Bachelor of Biomedical Science to then go on to become a doctor. My brother has always suffered with this condition affecting his kidneys, and he was always on medication. He was always getting some kind of surgery done, and I thought if I became a doctor, then I would be able to provide that kid to a little bit more people. So I got my offer letter saying that I was accepted in that degree. I was thrilled. I was thrilled to get
that offer. I gave my dad a call. I gave him so much joy by letting him know that I was offered a place in UNI.
Coming up after the break, Hareni learns what her education will cost.
Her welcome back.
When Hareni started applying for universities, she was made to do so as an international student. She thought it was strange given she'd been here since she was a child, but didn't think too much about it. Hareni still remembers the moment she opened that letter from Victoria University telling her that she's been accepted into biomedical science, her first step towards becoming a doctor.
So it said that I was offered a place as an international student because I've applied as an international student, because that's the only way I can apply. The second page had the fear infom the total amount that was expected for us to pay. It said ninety five thousand, and I'm like I was just sitting there looking at it for a couple of minutes because I didn't believe my eyes. First, I was like, ninety five thousand for what? And then I sat down verted over and over again.
I was shocked, and I didn't want to break it to my dad that I would have to pay these feests. And then I gave my dad a call. I told him that I wouldn't be able to access X. I was heartbroken over why this was, and when I asked my dad why I was being treated differently when I tried to apply for UNI, he said, well, our case has been rejected and they haven't found us to be junior refugees. They don't actually want us here, and.
That broke my heart.
I was like, all this hope that I've saved up, all this dreams that I've built over so many years after coming to this country broke.
So it sounds like at some point during the application process, you had realized that you would need to apply as an international student, but it wasn't until you got that letter that you realized what that meant and how much money that would cost. Is that right? Yeah, that's right.
Yes. But my dad was like, I'll do whatever to make your study, I'll do whatever to make you unlocked her and I felt like I was placing that burden on him yet again. What was a happy moment was kind of broken after hearing about the fees.
Parini's dad scrambled to find the money working an extra job so that she could start studying. She completed two and a half years of her degree with support from her dad and also from her husband, who she married while she was at UNI.
I had done two and a half eas of my bachelor degree, which in which I had four months left to graduate. My dad had an injury at work and my husband ended up losing his job around the same time, and we couldn't do anything to pay for the UNI as well. They had decided to just enroll me because I couldn't pay. So I already owe the UNI like twenty four or twenty five K, and I would need another twenty four or twenty five k to finish off
my bachelor degree. But in saying so, I also want to do a Bachelor of Medicine, which makes me a doctor. And to do medicine it's like seventy seven thousand a year. I'm not even able to pay ninety five thousand for three years. How am I going to pay seventy seven thousand for a year to become a doctor. I wasn't able to brive with vanes and a banks because of
my visa status and it drove me to depression. I had to face the harsh reality in the truth that the country didn't want me here, that I don't actually belong anywhere at all, the country I was born and doesn't want me, wants to get rid of me, kill me, and I didn't even know what to do. I sought out so many organizations, so many refugee supporters to see
if they could help me at all. My husband did write to so many MP's as well, and all they said was that they could probably get us mental help, but they cannot do anything about my situation or about my education either. It was hard because well, the politician that needs to care for us, they don't even consider us human beings.
There are more than ten thousand people on bridging visas in Australia, and with Year twelve exams and university offers approaching, the young people who were brought to Australia by parents seeking asylum will be faced with this same problem. Pay the extremely high international fees or forgo the chance to get a tertiary education and the opportunities that brings.
What am I supposed to do with my life in those years? I cannot study. So I'm going to have to work. I am working, I am paying tax. This is what we've been doing for twelve years. We've been paying tax, waiting for this opportunity to get to go Australia or home and to finally be at peace, to have that breadth of siyeh and know that we finally belong in this country. Yep, we haven't been given that opportunity.
And so ha RENI, what would need to change for you to be able to study at university here like any other student.
The only solution at the moment that we have is that we need our permanent viasas and if we do have our permanent visas, then we'll be able to apply as a domestic student, which we are after ten years in this country. We are domestic. This is our home home and we should be able to have access to education without worrying about all the fees that that's going to literally break our families. About the boy I told you about the boy that went to the same UNI as me. He came on the same boat as me,
He played with me on the boat. He had to flee the same situation we had to flee, the same genocide he's got a visa though, so he did end up end up getting a permanent visa. I came with him and they have treated me so unfairly and said that I'm not a genuine refugee, that I don't belong here. After building a home and a life here, A lot of people have lost their lives waiting in a slimbo, including one of my friends who was also trying to study. Yet because we can't, he had to go and work.
He paid tax. Yeah, after waiting in this slimbo, he's taken his life.
I'm so sorry to hear that. ARENI Like, what is.
This government going to do with us? Like we've been here, We've been begging, we've been campaigning for our rights. Yet the government hasn't even looked at us. They haven't given us a reply.
And RENI, we know that there have been cases where the government has intervened on behalf of people who have been living on ridging visas. I'm thinking of Nadees and Pria Rigappa and the Bila Willa family. Can you tell me your thoughts on that.
I am glad for those families that did end up receiving permanent visas, such as the Billowilla and the bell are At family. Priya actually traveled on the same boat with me, and they faced so many struggles. They were almost deported from this country and they were finally able to give their visas after so much fight. I'm happy for them. I'm happy that they get to call this country home. I'm happy they're finally safe and say keep
in this country. But in doing so, the government it has when we looked at one family or a couple of families, even though I'm happy for them, why aren't we given the scene opportunity, Why are we still being left behind?
Well, Hereni, thank you so much for talking to me about all of this today. I really appreciate you speaking with me, no worries.
Thank you.
To find out more about Hareni and other students going through this, you can read Denhim Sadler's story in the Saturday Paper. It's called All My Dreams Shattered asylum Seekers Barred from Australian Universities. It's available now. We spoke to Hareni just recently. She told us that she's still stuck
in limbo. Her case has not progressed. Hareni said she's still hoping for a permanent visa and is hopeful that if labor wins, they may reconsider their position on people occur, but so far, no one from the government has indicated they'll help her.