Ben Robb grew up in Ararat, attending Ararat West and Ararat High Schools. Ben is still close to his
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family in Ararat and regularly keeps contact with his old Ararat friends.
Ben completed Commerce at Melbourne University.
He then worked in Finance, primarily Investment Banking, which took him from Melbourne to London, New York and Singapore.
He met Sarah, an American, while in New York and married in Sonoma, California.
When the family moved back to Melbourne, Ben left the world of finance to become a stay-at –home Dad looking after Eleanor 9 and Milo 7.
Sarah became the primary breadwinner working in Human Resources at Google.
Once the kids started school, Ben began searching where he could use his Finance experience.
A friend introduced him to Kon Karapanagiotidis, the chief executive and founder of Asylum Seekers Resource Centre (ASRC).
Ben served on the Board for two years as Treasurer and since then has been an active volunteer applying his finance skills wherever he can.
Ben was the guest speaker at the Annual General Meeting of the Rural Australians for Refugees on 4 October 2017 at Salingers, Great Western where he explained the work of the ASRC.
The ASRC is an independent not-for- profit organisation, founded over 15 years ago in Footscray distributing food.
Today it’s the largest organisation of its kind in Australia with an annual revenue of $10.5 million.
It still runs out of Footscray but has a satellite location in Dandenong as well.
There are 100 staff and over 1200 active volunteers who provide critical support for about 3,000 people seeking asylum (its members).
The ASRC provides numerous services via approximately 30 programs that address the most critical needs of its members.
These include:
- Housing. 80% of members are in danger of homelessness due to exclusion from work rights.
- Health and Counselling. This delivers over 3,500 free health care appointments annually including immunization, psychiatry and pain management.
- Human Rights Law. It ensures members have access to justice at all stages of the refugee determination process.
- Foodbank. It provides members with free groceries. Most food comes from donations and helps provide about $40 of food per member each week
- Community Meals. These provide a daily free lunch to all members as well as staff and volunteers (over 60,000 meals annually).
- Material Aid Program. This provides members with essential items such as nappies, coats, blankets, bedding, mobile phones, phone cards, MYKI cards
The ASRC Innovation Hub is designed to empower people so that they do not need to rely on welfare programs.
The hub offers over 5000 hours annually of English classes and help to enrol in vocational education and training courses.
Ben spends most of his time, helping manage two Social Enterprises: Catering and Cleaning.
Together they employ about 60 people seeking asylum and have grown to $2 milllion in annual revenue.
Frank Kitchen is a member of Rural Australians for Refugees
