Highlights
- Iraqi-Australian and his work team donated time to the Lismore clean up
- Saad Majid Shukur views it as a way to pay back Australia for giving him refuge
- Calls for other Arabic-speaking people to help flood areas
Saad Majid Shukur, a Sydney-based demolition worker, was part of a work group sent to do a paid job by their company Ram Demolishing in the flood-impacted Lismore.
“We arrived in Lismore at around 9 o’clock in the morning on March 13. I was shocked to see the size of the devastation in the city,” Mr Shukur told SBS Arabic24.
He said he could not conceal his astonishment to see the “comprehensive damage” with his eyes, despite having been a witness to war-torn cities in his home country of Iraq in the not-so-distant past.
Mr Shukur arrived in Australia as a refugee from Iraq via Turkey in 2010.
The regional NSW town suffered a severe blow from the unprecedented flood events that is only now easing.
Cleaning up will be a lengthy process, cautioned Lismore Mayor Steve Krieg despite volumes of up to 3500 tonnes of rubbish being removed on a daily basis.
At seeing the damage to the town on arrival, Mr Shukur told his nine-man work group that he intended to take part in the clean-up effort, free-of-charge, and divide his time between doing the volunteer work and the paid job he was originally sent to do in Lismore.
"It was (then) not a surprise to me to hear from my workmates that they would be happy to do so (too)," he said.
The group included four other Iraqi-Australians as well as three Fijians and a Malaysian man.
I thought it is the right time to pay back Australia and the community who welcomed and offered us all the help as refugees some years ago.
“We used our trucks to stop at each house and offer our help to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel on the ground in the clean-up,” he said.
He explained that the ADF were there to clean up, but the huge damage made it impossible for them to do the Job alone.
After the first day of volunteer work, the group decided to continue for a second day, working from early morning until noon on the paid job then from 1pm until 6pm on the volunteer work.
Mr Shukur and his team meet Lismore locals during their volunteer clean-up operation. Source: Saad Majid Shukur
“We remained doing that for three days during which we helped dozens of families clean up their homes,” he told SBS Arabic24.
The locals were so happy with Mr Shukur’s group's work, they kept offering to pay them, he said.
When the locals saw us stop by their homes to clean up, they approached us to offer money in return for the work, but I said 'no' as this was a sincere gift from our hearts to theirs.
It is estimated that the reconstruction of the town could take years with thousands having lost belongings and evacuated homes.
Mr Shukur noted that the size of the town damage would need a huge effort from all services, organisations and communities.
“I call upon the Arabic-speaking community to play their part in the effort and show to the wider community that we are part of the nation,” he said.
