Airdate: Community Cop

SBS is taking a look at issues in the African communities in Australia. Tonight Insight which travels to Victoria to bring the local Somali community together to discuss recent events and to explore the challenges they face growing up in Australia. It airs at 7:30pm.

On Sunday, it screens Community Cop, a doco on the community of refugees living in a block of high-rises in Flemington in inner city Melbourne. There are 5000 people living in four high-rises and the community many of them from war-torn Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Andrew “AJ” Allen was assigned as a community liaison officer to help improve relations between the community and the local authorities, and to help decrease the rate of crime.

With limited resources but assistance from key community members including youth worker Ahmed Ahmed and youth ‘troublemaker’ turned advocate Ahmed Dini, AJ sets out to earn the trust of this suspicious community. It is a tough job, when some even within his own ranks regard this community policing as a waste of time and money.

It also looks at the themes of how tough it is to migrate to Australia, and refugees who seek acceptance in their new homeland.

It airs 9:30pm Sunday on SBS ONE.

You can see more at Screen Australia.