When the world sees Refugees, we see Waymakers
Timothy Buxton |
TEDxCurrumbin
• October 2021
Arriving in Iraq on the same day ISIS took Mosul in 2014, Tim Buxton looked at his young family (his children were 3yrs, 1yrs & 9 weeks) and wondered what he had done. The region had changed overnight. Slaughter, torture, and slavery were imminent for ethnic and religious minorities – unless they could escape. He watched with the world as two million men, women and children fled the terror. Those harrowing scenes are tragically similar to the desperation the world has once again witnessed at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan. Tim would discover how broken the global response to the refugee crisis had become, and how the world’s most vulnerable (40% are children) would be dehumanised with labels: illegal immigrants, placeless, stateless, people on the move.
In 2017, Tim’s family moved back to Australia, where he founded “You Belong”, a charity that empowers refugees to integrate and thrive in Australia. He is also host of the podcast, “Justice Matters”.
In this talk, Tim proposes a new way of seeing and naming those forcibly displaced from their homes, and invites listeners to join him. Until We All Belong.