Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would endorse those comments. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with Sarah Williams, Alice Gomez and Heather Stewart from the Centre for Multicultural Youth which is based in Dandenong. They came to discuss a great project which is called 'Our Patch–Social Cohesion'. The Centre for Multicultural Youth was established over 25 years ago as a not-for-profit organisation that supports young people from multicultural backgrounds to build better lives in Australia. This organisation works with young people in a range of settings including settlement, education, employment, housing, sport, justice and health.

The centre's new program works with young people of all backgrounds, aged between 16 and 25 years. It aims to increase participation in social and community life for all and to strengthen the leadership capabilities of young people in our region. In late 2013 the first phase of this project began. It involved a series of conversational workshops in the city of Casey with young people whose background is African, Pasifika, Afghan, Koori or Anglo-Australian. The conversations focused on the highlights and challenges of living in the area and explored their for the local community. One participant, Ariana Tugaga, described Our Patch as being about 'breaking the chains of cultural stereotypes'. Youth facilitator TeHeapera Nikora stated: 'For me impacting the world could be as simple as understanding that I got through to one person and that one person will now spend their life understanding and considering other cultures.'

A series of conversations from the African community and the Afghan community centred on two particular issues. One was a meeting places for young people in the area. The city of Casey covers a vast area; it is dispersed but it does not have anywhere for the youth of these two communities to meet on a regular basis. The other issue which came mainly from the Afghan participants was the presence of protective service officers and CCTV cameras at train stations. For the Pasifika community there was a concern about the separation between young people and older adults. Young people want to feel more included and to have their schools understand their particular culture, because there was some concern that some schools did not identify their culture. Each of these conversations has produced outstanding feedback for the Centre for Multicultural Youth. This is about integrating our community and making the community a better place to live, and these projects should continue to be supported and spoken about in this place.