The loud cries and chants of hundreds of pro-refugee activists who crowded Civic Square fell silent as former asylum seeker Jamila Ahmadi spoke of her treacherous journey from Afghanistan to Australia.
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An unrelenting wave of discrimination, persecution and torture drove Ms Ahmadi's family to flee Kabul more than a decade ago, sparking a journey of "dark memories and painful wounds" in search of a peaceful life.
They travelled from Pakistan to Indonesia to board a wooden fishing boat packed with more than 180 other refugees. The vessel was eventually picked up by an Australian navy ship.
Her family's relief at arriving in Darwin was short-lived after they were taken to Woomera detention centre.
For the next three months they lived fenced in by barbed wire and were referred to by an ID number instead of by name.
Ms Ahmadi and her family eventually left the centre, built a new life, and became Australian citizens seven years later.
She later realised her parents left their home, families and careers to forge a better life for their children.
Filled with gratitude for her adopted country, she went to university and volunteered heavily in her spare time.
"I am the product of giving refugees a go," she said, to a loud cheer from the crowd.
"Once you've spoken to at least one refugee, and heard their story, your perceptions of refugees will change.
"You will realise we are just trying to survive, and live a peaceful life."
Earlier, members of the ACT's religious, university and community groups marched through the city centre, chanting for refugees to be welcomed to Australian shores at the Palm Sunday rally.
Protesters at the event, organised by the Canberra Refugee Action Committee, agitated for an end to mandatory offshore detention, and for the federal government to resettle asylum seekers held on Manus Island and Nauru in Australia.
St Vincent de Paul Society of Australia chief executive John Falzon told the crowd it was time to "resist the politics of cruelty and replace it with the politics of love" for asylum seekers.
"We are here because it is time for us as a nation to collectively dream of a society that does not lock people out, or lock people up, for the crime of hope."
Mr Falzon said refugees who fled their countries due to war, torture, persecution, pain and suffering left with nothing but hope, based on the "radical notion" that another type of life was possible.
"But when they come to our shores, they have been told by successive governments, 'abandon all hope, you who enter here'," he said.
"Well might they be told this; but not in our name."
