The Scanlon Foundation is pleased to announce the 28 recipients of the 2015 Annual Community Grant Round. Projects will run across 14 local government areas and will contribute positively to the transition of migrants into their local communities.
Grants have been given to organisations in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia
Anthea Hancocks, CEO of the Scanlon Foundation found this year’s annual grants to be encouraging: “There are some very exciting initiatives being undertaken at the local level. It is evident that communities and community organisations are embracing the role they play in supporting the transition of migrants.”
The Scanlon Foundation used scoping work conducted by Professor Andrew Markus at Monash University to identify 14 LGAs around Australia that are areas with large populations of new and emerging communities which are also somewhat disadvantaged in regard to resources or infrastructure.
“Local government plays such an integral role in the experience of new migrants to Australia. We hope this targeted funding will support the 14 LGAs around Australia by providing additional resources to organisations actively working in improving social cohesion,” says Anthea.
“The Scanlon Foundation received an unprecedented number of applications for innovative projects focusing on employment, education and intercultural community engagement. This year’s applications were of a very high standard,”
The Scanlon Foundation has a strong interest in place based activities, allowing local communities to identify and solve local problems. For more information, go to www.scanlonfoundation.org.au.
Successful grant recipients:
Brimbank, Victoria
Melbourne City Football Club
Soccer for All
The Soccer for All project aims to build onto the aspects of social inclusion through providing ease of accessibility, participation to emerging communities within Brimbank. Participants will have the opportunity to play and spectate as well as for community leadership development.
Volunteering Victoria
Collaborative Partnerships for CALD Volunteering – A Pilot Program in Brimbank
This pilot project will provide specialised volunteer support services to existing and potential CALD volunteers, the volunteer involving organisation that deploy those volunteers, and the CALD support agencies that act as intermediaries.
Dandenong, Victoria
Stand Up
Encounters Refugee Mentoring Program
Stand Up’s Encounters program focuses on empowering and supporting Sudanese immigrants living in the City of Dandenong, and has been developed in close consultation with the local Nuba Mountains and Darfuri communities.
Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights
Parenting for Peace: Building Mothers’ Capacity
The project aims to develop skills of Muslim mothers in undertaking peace-oriented parenting, thereby, using their family role to build a culture of peace and teaching inclusive values and respect for diversity and honouring differences.
Hobsons Bay, Victoria
Victorian Arab Social Services
Uniting as One
The project is a community development and capacity building project which promotes community participation and strengthening through the delivery of a range of holistic and culturally sensitive interventions to address the issues of actual and perceived injustice (domestic and global), the pre- and post-migration experience, discrimination, marginalisation and isolation from the greater Australian community.
Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association
Connecting Me
This project would connect the disadvantaged people, from a Vietnamese speaking background, to community legal service providers. The program will provide information through individual engagement, community education workshops and radio talkback programs on legal matters. It will help improve equity and access to legal services through increased knowledge of how and where to access information and support.
Whittlesea, Victoria
Brotherhood of St Laurence
Resource – helping newly arrived young people achieve happy and independent lives
The aim of the project is to deliver a comprehensive program of assistance that will build the skills and capacity of culturally and linguistically diverse young people aged from 16 to 24 years, including those who are newly arrived, to engage socially and economically with the community. The object is for them to maintain and/or reengage with education and training, leading to them gaining employment.
Blacktown, NSW
Mount Druitt Ethnic Communities Agency
Young Business Entrepreneurs
Young Business Entrepreneurs will run for a period of 27-32 weeks, and will provide multicultural youth with the resources and training they need to build, maintain, and then liquidate a small business.
Australian Red Cross
Civic Engagement and Leadership Course
Red Cross have developed a Civic Engagement and Leadership course in partnership with Western Sydney TAFE to address an unmet need for appropriately supported pathways to participation in the wider community for young refugees and asylum seekers who have left high school.
Parramatta, NSW
Sikh Youth Australia Inc.
Leading Self to Significance
The program focuses on professional development of youth to inspire them to develop soft skills in their personal development and meeting the challenges in a multi-cultural community. The acquired skills, knowledge and confidence gained by the young through the project will provide them with the ability to create subsequent youth-led projects for the benefit of the broader community.
Mahboba’s Promise
Engaging Afghan families and young people
The project works with Afghan family members in Parramatta (as well as Auburn and Blacktown) to build their skills so that they engage and actively participate and contribute to developing the changing nature of the Australian way of life.
Jesuit Refugee Service Australia
Arupe Place: Communities connect
The Communities Connect space will provide an increased number of programs and activities as well as to engage asylum seekers in these programs in order to build capacity, improve health and wellbeing, and increase social/community connections.
Bankstown, NSW
Chester Hill Neighbourhood Centre
Our Australian Hopes and Dreams
The program will work with students, aged 14-18 from local high schools, from migrant backgrounds to explore goals, dreams and career opportunities in Australia. Participants will take part in an art project.
Bankstown Youth Development Services
Bankstown Poetry Slam
The Bankstown Poetry Slam runs monthly and is a great opportunity for intercultural relationship development and expression. Participants learn about each other’s experience through the art form. This program is an opportunity for the diverse cultures of Bankstown to interact and develop in a safe and fun environment.
Fairfield, NSW
Australian Refugee Volunteers (ARV)
ARV Tweens Program
ARV’s Tweens program will strive to address issues of social exclusion and isolation often experienced by refugees and asylum seekers living in Australia that can negatively effect their social, emotional and academic development. It is common for children living in community detention or otherwise with traumatic pasts to experience isolation and feelings of hopelessness.
Warakirri College
Bridge to Success
The project is an intensive, broad-based intercultural awareness program extending over 8 months. The target group is the Year 10 – 12 students of Warakirri College who represent a wide diversity of ethnic backgrounds in the CALD community of Fairfield NSW and whose school and local community will be shortly receiving a significant number of refugees from the Syrian conflict zone.
Auburn, NSW
Auburn Diversity Services
Better Life, Better Auburn
Working with culturally and linguistically diverse people in Auburn (in particular, youth and women) to build social connections and increase community participation.
Prosper Australia
Rights, Responsibilities and Relationships (3Rs)
A series of culturally appropriate seminars on family law, healthy relationships and child protection will be presented across the Auburn (and Blacktown) area. The seminars will be in Arabic and support understanding the legal and health systems, as they related to families, and how to work within them.
Liverpool, NSW
Marrickville Legal Centre
Early intervention through community legal education for vulnerable young people
This program provides legal education to young people in the highly culturally diverse area of Liverpool (as well as Parramatta, Bankstown, Fairfield and Auburn) to support understanding and dealing with police and the law. Presented to high school student in areas of high cultural diversity, the program will support new and emerging communities to transition to life in Australia.
Think+Do Tank Foundation
Lost in Books
Lost is Books is a program to provide high quality children’s books in English and relevant community languages. Located in Liverpool, the space will provide spaces for children to play and learn and for care-givers (mostly women) to enjoy coffee and cake in a café area while being able to interact with bilingual social workers, that can help them with a range of support services.
Logan, QLD
The Song Room
Community Connections in Harris Fields
The Song Room will work with up to 240 students, up to 20 parents/community members and up to 6 teachers in a music and creative arts project in Harris Field State School that will enhance students’ school engagement, learning outcomes, social /emotional well-being and community connectedness. In addition, the project will expand generalist teacher skills and build school capacity for long-term sustainable arts learning.
Access Community Services Ltd
Logon set for success project
The Logan Set for Success project provides a unique opportunity to promote healthy active lifestyles, a positive future orientation and strengthened community bonds for migrant children, youth and families in Logan through sport.
Ipswich, QLD
Challenge Employment and Training
Fostering Ipswich Multicultural Economic Participation Project
Supporting multicultural participants to identify, plan and implement micro-business opportunities. Developing business management skills and providing local economic development opportunities.
Multicultural Youth Empowerment Strategy Inc.
Migrant Youth Empowerment
The MYES program links migrant youth 14-24 with mentors to strategically support their transition into the community. The program will see greater community connections, personal empowerment and supporting positive choices.
Murray Bridge, South Australia
Youth Opportunities Association (SA) Inc
Helping Murray Bridge Youth Become Personal Leaders
The Program provides group and one-on-one coaching on topics essential to a diverse group of young people including communication, motivation and goal setting. Participants are provided with techniques that challenge their usual set of behaviours and they are supported to test these techniques in real life situations. In this way, Youth Opportunities directly provides methods for young people to positively influence their lives and their relationships with others and their communities.
University of Adelaide
Murray Bridge: A blueprint for a good regional settlement experience
The study aims to achieve a better understanding of successful settlement of new migrants in the Rural City of Murray Bridge, South Australia. The University of Adelaide, along with project partners, hopes to create a blueprint for other communities to facilitate migrant settlement in rural and regional Australia and maximise new migrants’ contributions to regional social, civic and economic development.
Mirrabooka, Western Australia
Ishar Multicultural Women’s Health Centre
“Time for us” International Women’s Group
Ishar will provide information and education sessions with diverse service providers, interest groups and government agencies to expand knowledge about the systems, resources, community and society in Australia. Participation will be encouraged with activities such as sewing, dressmaking, arts and crafts. There is a strong focus on intercultural and intergenerational socialisation and sharing of skills and information within a safe environment.
Inclusion WA
One Community Project
The ‘One Community Project’ will use the vehicles of sport and recreation to bring people from a range of cultures and backgrounds together. Sport and recreation are particularly powerful in uniting communities and Inclusion WA has specialised in utilising these vehicles to affect change in many communities across Western Australia. In recent times, Inclusion WA has been approached by members of the Local Government, Clubs and groups and community members, all requesting assistance to help in breaking down some of the barriers.
