Two Bronze Awardees from Queensland featured in an article written by the Gold Coast Bulletin recently, highlighting not only their incredible achievements with Surf Life Saving, but how they have overcome barriers of language, culture and information, as they migrated here from Africa less than a year ago.
Walter and Almiro Muzazaila are two young brothers proving that any young person from any background and from any circumstance can take part in The Duke of Ed and develop into confident young Australians. Counting their Surf Life Saving towards their Award, we share with you part of their story. .jpg)
“It takes courage to be a lifesaver. The courage to save a drowning man. The courage to wear a dorky red and yellow cap. Sometimes the most courageous thing of all, however, is having the guts to sign up in the first place. Especially when you’re a kid from Mozambique who’s only been in the country a few months.
“I just respect these guys so much,” Glen Wallwork says of the newest members of Southport SLSC’s Patrol 10. “For them to have the confidence and courage to come down and do a course that’s in their second language, it just blows me away.”
The two guys he is referring to are Walter and Almiro Muzazaila – two brothers who only nine months ago were growing up in an African port city called Beira where the ocean was “flat, real flat”. Now they’re living at Ashmore and patrolling an ocean that has the ability to scare the bejesus out of seasoned lifesavers.
Mario and Sandra Muzazaila sold everything to give their six sons a brighter future n Australia. At 18, Walter is their eldest and he will never forget those first couple of months on the Gold Coast.
“Everything was different,” he says. “The people. The language. It was quite hard to get along with other peoples.”
Asked how much English he knew back then, he smiles. “Hi. Hello. How are? I’m walter.” He smiles again to signify that was all.
And this is where Glen Wallwork comes in. He works for Wesley Mission Brisbane and overseas a program called Active Inclusion. Funded by the Department of Communities, it helps migrants overcomes barriers to build relationships with their new community.
Because despite some people ragging that migrants’ should be ridgey-didge, dinki-di, true blue Aussies the minute they set foot in the country, the reality is much different.
“There are language barriers, cultural barriers, information barriers,” Wallwork says. “We’re there to help migrants overcome them.”
Since the start of last summer Active Inclusion has guided 60 new migrants through a surf safety curse. It then helped place some of them with soccer clubs, others wanted basketball teams. Seven wanted to become lifesavers – two of these were Walter and Almiro.
Southport SLSC chief instructor Steve Leslie can’t praise his new recruits enough.
He’s seen how often Almiro came to the beach after school to master the rescue boards.
“...it’s so important they’re here... They can assist us with beach goers from other cultures. They’re inspire other migrants to join. They’ll break down other barriers,” Steve says.
Walter and Almiro are prime examples of how young migrants are changing perceptions and truly are showing what young “Australians” are capable of. “
Story written by Dwayne Grant
Sourced from the Gold Coast Bulletin, Saturday 7 May 2011
