Dr Robin Jones
Throughout Robin Jones' life, twin passions - special education, and advocating for the marginalised - have travelled in concert, often to far corners of the globe. Giving voice to the less fortunate has informed her teaching, and tackling educational disadvantage has amplified her humanitarian efforts.
"They have always run parallel," says Robin, a retired UNE educator perhaps best known for co-establishing the humanitarian settlement organisation Armidale Sanctuary. "My paid employment has always been centred on helping those who need extra assistance, whether that be refugees, people with a disability or Indigenous people. The voluntary work has been an extension of that."
Her love of teaching may have flourished in the lush environs of Papua New Guinea, but Robin's concern for social justice had humble beginnings in a stark Queanbeyan classroom.
"I remember being seven or eight, in second class with a child that I realised later had an intellectual disability," Robin says. "We were each obliged to take turns reading a sentence from a book, and this child was humiliated every day. It really upset me and got me thinking. I could see that it just wasn't right."
Robin didn't intend to be a teacher; she was intent on becoming a social worker instead. However, she fell in love with the profession after accepting a position at a private school during her university studies. It led to appointments in schools in PNG, Canberra and Sydney, where Robin grew confident in the belief that it was the right of every child to be educated to their optimum in an enjoyable situation.
"I was soon working with children who experienced learning difficulties, including those who end up in special education, and I campaigned for many years for their inclusion in mainstream classes," says Robin. "I could see they deserved the same opportunities as all other children."
The sheer breadth of Robin's paid and voluntary teaching roles is breathtaking - from early childhood to remote Distance Education students with a disability, through to teaching English to traumatised migrants for the Department of Immigration.
In academic circles, her contribution to the training of special education teachers at UNE, first in the 1990s and again in the 2000s, is legendary. (She completed her own doctorate at UNE in 1998.) Lesser known is that she has helped countless more disadvantaged people to learn in the most challenging and dangerous of settings.
In refugee camps in South Sudan, Robin spent a year training teachers to deliver lessons to people from that country, and she worked several times on the border of Thailand and then Burma (now Myanmar), all with the Jesuit Refugee Service. In Bhutan, for Save the Children, she later helped develop the curriculum for a fledgling four-year teacher training course - a UNE initiative.
"Overseas, my voluntary work was always in education of some kind - curriculum writing, training teachers, teaching itself - to respond to the needs mostly of refugee children and their families," Robin says. "I was seeing people in absolutely heartbreaking situations. I have always considered myself a human rights advocate, so promoting the needs of refugees and people with disabilities has fitted nicely with my employment."
It was this compassion for others that saw Robin become a member of the Refugee Council of Australia and Regional Multicultural NSW, and to co-found Armidale Sanctuary, in 2003. Over eight years, Sanctuary welcomed about 60 refugees, mostly from South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, on special humanitarian visas.
But Robin had grander plans. She was positive that Armidale was the ideal location for a regional refugee settlement site and single-handedly campaigned for this status. Her persistence paid off in 2017 when the declaration finally came, making Armidale the first such Australian site in 11 years. She is thrilled that about 700 Ezidi people from north-west Iraq have escaped persecution by Islamic State and are now making a safe home in the city.
"The Ezidis are absolutely wonderful people, and any group of people from another country enriches a community," Robin says. "Armidale has put its arms around these lovely people and the Ezidis have responded accordingly. Our city has benefitted so much from having them part of our community. They have broadened our knowledge about the suffering of others."
As for the Australian Government's broader refugee policies, Robin is not so complimentary. "Australia doesn't do enough for refugees," she says. "I can understand there has to be a limit, but our current intake is small for a nation as well developed as ours. Those refugees who have not been brought with the agreement of the Federal Government - and have ended up on Manus and Nauru - have been treated absolutely abysmally. We are imprisoning people with huge potential."
Realising the potential of others has long been Robin's personal and professional goal. Recently, those passions have again converged in her "grandmotherly" support for one Ezidi family. "The youngest three of five children are deaf," Robin says. "So my experience with special education and refugees has been useful. The children have successfully had their cochlear ear implants fitted and are on their way to learning to talk. The youngest is having early intervention and attending preschool. It's just wonderful."
A Member of the Order of Australia (AM) recognises Robin's extensive work in refugee settlement, education and community service over the past 60 years. But when pressed to reflect on what has brought her greatest joy, Robin's reply is simple: "There is nothing more beautiful than a happy child".
