Abirthday and march for family
As Queenstown prepares to march in support of the Wijerathne family tomorrow, they are having a low-key birthday celebration for their wife and mother.
Dinesha Amarasinghe was having a day of no emails, enjoying birthday cake dropped in by a friend, a special lunch cooked by husband Sam and an afterschool date with her three sons, on her 42nd birthday yesterday.
She was feeling overwhelmed by the support from the community.
‘‘Sometimes Sam and I are thinking we’re all alone and no-one’s here but there’s a lot of people with us,’’ she said.
Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker is organising the march, and supporters include Queenstown Primary School, health professionals the family have worked with, and many friends and family, work and cricket colleagues.
The family are from Sri Lanka and have been in New Zealand for eight years but face deportation after Dinesha, a chef who has held the skilled workers visa that allows the family to be here, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis three years ago.
A humanitarian appeal has been lodged with the Immigration and Protection Tribunal to stop their deportation from New Zealand but Sam is not permitted to work in the interim and after January 6, the boys will not be able to attend school.
Walker has also written to the minister of immigration an the associate minister, asking them to make an exception to policy to allow the family to stay in New Zealand and for a temporary work visa to be issued to Sam so he can financially support his family during the appeal process.
Dinesha said the thought that people would march in support of the family made her feel ‘‘so, so happy’’.
Her sons, Subath, 11, Binath, 10, and Senath, 8, were curious about it.
‘‘They keep asking what they need to do. I’ve told them they only need to walk.’’
The march starts at the Man St entrance to the Lakeview Holiday Park at noon and finishes at the Village Green.