Rob Leslie is on a mission to welcome people to Ballan.
The church leader has formed a group to welcome refugees to Moorabool.
He speaks to Esther Lauaki.
What’s your connection with Moorabool?
We moved to Ballan because it was a lovely small town in a great location.
Many years afterwards I discovered that some of my ancestors, the Andrews, had settled here in the 1860s and owned a farm on the Ballan-Greendale Road.
How long have you lived in the area?
My wife Sally and I moved to Ballan in 1994 from Melbourne, more than 20 years ago.
I happened to be driving through Ballan to drop off one of my older children in Daylesford and saw a very run-down old bluestone house for sale.
Sally was in Thailand at the time and I sent her some photos.
A few weeks later I picked her up from the airport and we drove to Ballan to see our new house.
Luckily she liked it!
Tell me about your community involvement?
For many years I worked full-time in Melbourne for an organisation that provides housing for people who have experienced homelessness.
This didn’t leave much time to be involved locally.
This year, I’m doing part-time consultancy work and have a bit more time.
I have been involved for many years in the local Uniting Church.
What made you want to host the Refugee Realities event?
A small group of us started meeting, to think about how we might respond locally to refugees … and actually welcome some refugee families into the Ballan community and provide practical support.
In the shorter term, we wanted to educate ourselves … so we thought a Refugee Week event would be a good start.
Why do you feel Ballan would be a good community to host refugees?
At a practical level, Ballan is well located and has good access to health services, schools, and employment opportunities.
It also has good access to public transport.
Just as importantly, the Ballan community has shown it can be very welcoming and generous to people from diverse backgrounds.
What do you think people can learn from the stories of refugees?
That underneath all the superficial differences, people are pretty much the same.
We all want our families to be able to grow up in a safe, secure community where they can get a good education and make a contribution.
Refugees are people who have shown tremendous courage in escaping from violence in their own countries for the sake of their families.
We should be proud to have them here.
What do you love about Ballan?
I love the fact that it’s almost impossible to walk down the main street without bumping into someone you know.
I also love that it only takes a short time to get to beautiful places like the Brisbane Ranges National Park.
Probably the thing I most love is that there seems to be so many people in Ballan who are quietly kind and generous.
