Sounds of joy at Villawood

VILLAWOOD Detention Centre makes news for hunger strikes and riots, but for Philip Feinstein it is just another place where human beings live.

Feinstein, 63, told The AJN he has always had a soft spot for people in difficult situations, so a year ago he approached the management of the centre, which houses asylum seekers, to see if he could help.

Since then, he has volunteered his time as a music teacher at Villawood and last week, presented the centre with 13 donated guitars in a bid to improve the lives of the 125 detainees inside through music.

“These people are going to die of boredom,” Feinstein, from North Bondi, said of the detainees.

Feinstein said since setting up his own program to help people quit smoking in 1983, he has become an advocate for helping lift peoples’ self esteem.

“The big picture is a political opinion, but the small picture is the individual people and I can make a bigger difference with the small picture,” he said.

When Feinstein entered Villawood for the first time last year he was surprised to see there was not a single piano or guitar. So he quickly set about changing that.

First he found a piano, which happened relatively quickly when someone coincidentally offered him one. He then sent an email to his friends asking who had guitars to donate; 13 people came forward.

“Being able to donate the guitars to Villawood is win, win, win,” Feinstein said. “The first win is obviously for the people here at Villawood, the second is for the people of Sydney, because a lot of these people will hopefully become Australian citizens, and the third is for the detention centre because normally we only hear about bad news from Villawood.”

He said he is proud to have been able to help. “I believe that 99.9 per cent of people in this world are good and they don’t mean any harm to others,” he said.

Feinstein said most of the guitars came from musicians within the Jewish community.

“When I presented them with the guitars last week I said that although most of the people in the centre are Muslim that Jewish people helped out,” he said. “And that is the basic principle – to help other people.”

JOSHUA LEVI

Photo: Philip Feinstein (left) with Villawood music teacher Adrian Mees at the Sydney detention centre. Photo: AJN file

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