The Catholic Episcopal Migration and Welfare Association (CEMWA) in Western Australia was the state-based receiving agency for post-World War II child migrants who were sent to WA under the Catholic child immigration scheme. After 1965, the child migration program to WA ceased and the welfare functions of the CEMWA were taken over by the Catholic Family Welfare Bureau which was established in 1970.
It its likely that it was a 'branch' of the Federal Catholic Migration Committee which was a sub-committee of the Catholic Bishop's Conference.
Barry Coldrey's book does not make it exactly clear whether the CEMWA was established in 1946, before the Bishops' Conference in 1947, or as a consequence of that.
The CEMWA held the records of children who came to WA under the Catholic child migration scheme and correspondence from a child's family in Britain or Malta usually came to the CEMWA. The Secretary of the CEMWA, Miss Sanderson, also liaised with the institutions and the Child Welfare Department about subsidies paid for the children. In later years, the CEMWA also coordinated the subsidies for children who were Wards and who had been placed in Catholic institutions.
In the early 1990s, the records relating to child migration were located by a social worker and brought into the care of the Catholic Migrant Centre.
1947? - 1970 Catholic Episcopal Migration and Welfare Association [CEMWA]
1970 - 1977 Catholic Family Welfare Bureau
1977 - Centrecare
Sources used to compile this entry: Coldrey, Barry M., The Scheme: the Christian Brothers and Childcare in Western Australia, Argyle-Pacific Pub., O'Connor, W.A., 1993. pp.127, 143, 171..
Prepared by: Debra Rosser
Created: 6 November 2012, Last modified: 22 September 2014