By Mikayla van Loon
Bringing the community together to celebrate and communicate was the concept for Mooroolbark’s most recent Coffee with a Cop event.
It saw members of Victoria Police, from Mooroolbark, Yarra Ranges Proactive Policing and the neighbourhood policing bike patrol unit, meet with representatives of Mooroolbark Community House, Monkami participants, the Australia Chin Community (Eastern Melbourne), Yarra Ranges Council and Mooroolbark Community Garden on Wednesday 26 February.
Putting on a barbecue as well, it helped draw a crowd making for a successful and well attended community gathering at Red Earth Park.
Helping facilitate the day, Yarra Ranges Council community development officer Santha Press said there were both positive reasons, like the establishment of the community house, and the not so positive reasons for hosting the event.
“We’ve been working with the local police around some perceived safety issues in the area. So it’s about building understanding between everybody and inviting the whole community in the establishment of the community house,” she said.
“Establishing the community house here is going to activate the area a lot more, and we really want a strong focus on inclusion, so making sure the Chin community find their place here with the rest of the community.”
Councillor Mitch Mazzarella, who attended the event, said bringing various groups together meant barriers could be dismantled.
“The police do a fantastic job in our local community and having this is another opportunity for people to come together, to break down the barriers that might exist between members of our community and the police,” he said.
“Having conversations like we’re having today means we can break down these barriers with police, so the work police do in the community is seen more favourably in the public perspective.”
For Australia Chin Community (Eastern Melbourne) president Thong Za Tawng, meeting the community in a setting like a barbecue was invaluable to sharing the Chin experience and building connections.
“This kind of bridging connection between service providers, Victoria Police, local council staff and the community members and other local members here, it is a very good opportunity, especially for us, to meet with the broader community, to talk about our story and let them know what we have been doing and where we come from, and to have a better understanding among community,” he said.
“This is a very good event, we think, and it really opened eyes for us and for other people as well, who don’t know as much, because we have a lot of issues in this area, like homelessness, and we want to work together with service providers, local council.”
Thong said in the east, there’s five tribal Chin groups adding to the collective population of around 6000, but the Chin Hakha speaking group makes up 4000 of that.
Unfortunately, Thong said the many in his community who are rough sleeping went through immense trauma, not only in their home country but also their transit country like Malaysia and India.
“Even coming here, there were a lot of challenges in setting up, with the language barrier and building a life,” he said.
“And there’s a lot of civil war happening back in their country of origin and it’s having negative consequences for families.”
Conversations between community, Thong said, were vital to the advocacy for his fellow Chin community members and events of this kind allowed networks to form to achieve that.
“There are a few people who I knew before, but I’m going to make new friends here today, and I have met with some local people who can help us provide support for the community as well
Santha said similarly, that coming together builds a collaborative environment of ideas and only strengthens the outcomes for the broader community.
“We know that a connected community is a strong community. We’ve got amazing community leaders here, people that have been volunteering for years, and they’re the backbone, they’re the strength of this community,” she said.
“So when they’re able to meet other groups who also have leaders, they start to collaborate.”
