Crossing Borders Melbourne

Crossing Borders is an international network of students whose mission it is to remove barriers to healthcare for refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. We run a diverse range of programs and events that all aim to educate and raise awareness of the detrimental effects mandatory detention and offshore policies have on the health of refugees. We focus especially on issues around the mental health of asylum seekers, especially in comparison to community-based processing. Our group has witnessed an exponential growth in size and scope since we started recruiting in 2013, and we currently have 148 volunteers on our database who come from various levels and faculties within the University. We have expanded from our pilot program, the detention centre visits, to four fully-fledged programs as well as several new programs in their initial stages. With refugees and asylum seekers being an increasingly contested issue in Australia, and with Australia being put in the international spotlight as a result, we believe there is a lot more that we can do as a university group to educate ourselves and hopefully others in the process.