Migrantweb.com Hostels Forum

[early shirly]

I was a single parent and had the job of cleaning at the migrant hostel Endeavour, and that was in the early 80's

I was astounded at the time at how much was provided for the people who were staying there. I cleaned the lot. Sometimes I wanted to go to another country and migrate to Australia!

There were schools,which provided english and other courses. medical facilities, red cross and salvos, banks, laundry, and even a child care centre. There was access to diff government depts.

All meals provided in a huge cafeteria, and the cooks tried to cater for different cultural needs in that area.

In each accommodation building, there were rooms that were just for drying clothes - these rooms were kept at a constant temperature for drying, kind of like a walk in drying cabinet.

There was a games room, with electronic games and pool and table tennis, and a film room. Residents were taken on excursions, a sports field - set up for soccer I think. And at Xmas, the children received gifts.

Each family room had toilet etc in it, and new matressing was provided for each new resident, which they were able to take with them when they left.

Before working there, I didn't even know these facilities existed. And now when I see the conditions of some migrant "detention" centres, I think back to how previous geneerations of migrants were treated. When did we start treating people as something less than human!!

I came across this website by accident and just had to have a say.

[stormfour]

Hi Shirley
The early 80s were a lot different to the early 60s,the facility you worked in was a purpose built hostel and as you say all was provided and the residents there were well looked after.
But things were quite different on the migrant hostels that we on this forum lived in,they were all mainly ex military camps ,with communal showers and toilets,and where usually away from the main stream suburbs ,usually built in industrial areas,such as altona hostel was smack bang in the middle of 3 or 4 oil refineries,and not very pleasant let me tell you,I think I can still smell it ( ugh ) .And the hostel in brooklyn was near a slaughter house,so you see things did change quite a bit for the new wave of migrants that came through in the 80s,you could say they had it all laid on a platter for them,but having said all that,as bad as the conditions where,we had a ball,and made freinds that have stood the test of time.
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Carol Myers Altona Hostel Dec 1962 - June 1964

[Len]

Hi Shirley welcome to the forums and thank you for having your say. That was really good. I particularly like the part were you said �I wanted to go to another country and migrate to Australia!�