The following people will be delivering papers during the 30 minute concurrent breakout sessions at the FECCA Congress. 

Please check the information boards at the Congress Secretariat at the Wrest Point to find out the day, times and location of these presentations

Clare Hickman and Rajiv Ramanathan (ADEC) - Empowering Ethnic Communities: Fostering Inclusive Service Provision through Relationship Building

This paper will outline a proposed model for service providers planning to make their services more inclusive to people from ethnic backgrounds.  Whilst the case of access to mental health services will be used as an example, the strategy suggested is relevant to all service providers, particularly in the health sector.

After briefly outlining the work of ADEC and its Transcultural Mental Health Access Program, the issue of how services can be made more inclusive for people from ethnic backgrounds will be presented and discussed. 

Currently many service providers are considering how they can improve their cultural competence, for example, through interpreter and cross-cultural awareness training.  It is suggested that this approach only addresses part of the issue.  

In order to empower ethnic communities, there is a need to better connect communities with service providers in a meaningful way.  This will enable them to directly influence the way services are provided to them.  Once these relationships have been built, the issues surrounding access to services can effectively be dealt with in partnership with ethnic communities rather than on behalf of them.

D.  Max Brandle OAM and Abeselom Nega

NAATI – The first thirty years.

NAATI was established by the Hon.  M.J.R.  Mackellar, Commonwealth Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs.  This paper will focus on educational and linguistic issues.  NAATI clarified from inception the terms interpreting and translating as they are used interchangeably and with additional meanings.  Interpreter tests were designed to take into account the practice of different modes of interpreting in the workplace namely simultaneous, consecutive or liaison interpreting.  Interpreters are tested in a context of artificial role play whereas tests for translators make use of authentic source materials.  Topics for discussion in this paper will include standard and colloquial language usage (the latter applies to interpreter tests), test parity between the different languages, quality assurance and re-accreditation, and test preparation for candidates.  Some of these issues also apply to accredited T/I courses taught by universities and TAFEs.  A particular focus will also be given to way in which the above is applied to newly emerging languages.

Joseph Chetcuti

Inclusivity & identity intersections

Access & equity issues continue to be ‘hard to reach’ concepts despite the continued lobbying by minority groups for such ideals.  Not only is it the responsibility of majority populations to promote the sustained practice towards access & equity for all but as ethnics we are just as liable to live up to the standards of what we preach.  Sadly, this has not been the case.

For example, as ethnics were do we stand on inclusiveness as it relates to our gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, intersex or queer colleagues who identify as ‘ethnics? When we talk about inclusiveness does the buck stop at religious or cultural inclusiveness? Or do we endeavour and encourage inclusiveness for those individuals that define themselves not only as being ethnics but existing as gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, intersex or queer members of our multicultural and broader society?

The question posed above raise some important questions that need to be answered, particularly from peak ethnic ‘representative’ bodies? Why? Because before we go on preaching about inclusiveness we need to look at our own backyards, clean them up and then be able to stand up and espouse the beauty of an inclusive and diverse society.  Some prominent members of our organisations are bravely ‘walking their talk’ and this is encouraging.  However, more needs to be done because the risk of sitting idle is too great because it involves our daughters and sons.

Patrizia Tiorelli (National Manager, Participation Services, Cricket Australia)  – Cricket as a tool for inclusion

Cricket Australia’s (CA) formal strategic plan outlines the organisation’s commitment to strengthening and protecting the spirit of cricket and the aggressive pursuit of the CALD demographic as part of the cricket family, and to significantly impact on growth of cricket participation.  Specific to school education, recruitment and retention of participants CA’s strategy identifies these goals:

• The launch of a National Schools Cricket Strategy, which encompasses resources and programs to deliver the desired outcomes

• The development of programs and resources to introduce and keep people in the game by building skills, participation levels, and cricket pathways

• The retention of participants through the provision of a positive first experience of the game in whatever shape or form that may take

• Actively promotes the benefits of cricket to all school personnel and stakeholders

• Build opportunities to link major events with cricket and the school curriculum

• Develops pilot programs for schools which are inclusive, proactive towards cricket, and provide States and Territories with strategic links to schools and local clubs, and increase gender and culturally-inclusive participation

Dr Steve Francis and Sarah Cornfoot (CMYI and ARACY joint presentation)

The Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI) has prepared two national papers on multicultural youth issues for the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY).  The first paper reviews the existing evidence on the needs of multicultural youth, and the second paper summarises current policy and program responses to these needs and highlights gaps in programs and service provision.  The papers focus on the areas of: family and community; health (physical health, mental health, sport and recreation, sexual health); education, training and employment (including language acquisition); material needs (finance, housing and homelessness); identity and racism; access to services and youth participation; and, juvenile justice (especially drugs, gangs, and relations with police).  In the process of preparing these papers CMYI formed jurisdictional reference groups in each state to provide local input especially with regard to programs available and gaps in service provision.  This congress provides another valuable opportunity to present these papers and seek further input from policy makers and service providers.

George Zangalis, National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters Council (NEMBC)

Presentation on the Value our Voices - Invest in Diversity campaign in support of community broadcasting

Rakesh Ahuja

Beyond Multiculturalism …to Australian-ness

In the wake of misguided policies, ranging from assimilation to White Australia, multiculturalism has served Australia very well indeed.  Australia became a successful melting pot quicker and qualitatively better than what, say, the US achieved after decades.  However, stresses and strains, which began to appear in the Australian meld in the nineties have widened considerably since 9/11.  Divisive cultural islands are in the making - some passive, others aggressive, towards the other. 

There can be no full stops in multiculturalism.  Building a tolerant society does not end with just the acceptance of diverse cultures, condescendingly if not reluctantly bestowed upon the new by the dominant cultural majority.  Or with the acceptance of different cuisines.  Show ponies will no longer do.

The demand of the day is to manage our diversity with innovative responses to fear-mongering policies feeding social divisiveness.  The challenge for Australian multiculturalism is to build bridges across diverse cultural mindsets.  We need to develop through diversity an ‘Australianness’, an amorphous concept, but one vital to welding a nation without ‘forced’ integration.  The core necessity is to promote mutual understanding of different civilisational value systems in Australia, including Aboriginal, without ordaining one as superior to another.  

Margaret Reynolds

“Taking the DIS out of Disability to create Accessible and Inclusive Australian Communities”

This paper will challenge the conventional notion of disability to focus on the vulnerabilities we all share.  Rather than viewing people with disabilities as victims, we need to value their contribution to society and utilize their expertise to create communities which are much more user friendly to all our members.

The paper will describe demographic trends in Australia and argue that decision makers have little time to create accessible and inclusive communities which welcome diversity and are accepting of difference.  As an ageing society we need to consider innovative ways of catering for people at all stages of their lives in a way that fosters greater integration and acceptance.

Melba Marginson and Dalal Samaan, Executive Officer, Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Coalition

Migrant and refugee women are having a difficult time being heard in this country.  The reasons are gender and race-related, often intersectional and structural.  The history of the founding of the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Coalition (VIRWC) is a good example of persistence and solidarity that abound in these women.   Since its establishment in 1997, the VIRWC has developed into a dynamic grassroots-based coalition of women's groups from small, developing, new and emerging communities.  The paper will explore the constructive strategies immigrant and refugee women adopt to address the lack of government and non-government policies, programs and projects that target their particular needs.  Their needs could be summarised under three categories:

• Settlement-related

• Skills-related

• Intersectional discrimination

The VIRWC promotes the notion that the most optimistic and passionate citizens of Australia are the immigrants and refugees.  Therefore, more resources should be directed towards making their early settlement in this country more productive.  For instance, resources should be made available not only to addressing their settlement-related needs, but equally, their skills-related needs and reducing the level of intersectional discrimination they encounter.

In spite of the lack of targeted government programs for immigrant and refugee women, the VIRWC has actively pursued projects and programs based on a three-pronged strategy that resulted from its grassroots-based community work.  These are:

• Leadership & Advocacy

• Economic well-being

• Social connections

Joanne Menadue, City of Salisbury

Facilitating social inclusion for newly arrived migrants and promoting community cohesion presents particular challenges for Local Governments.  This is especially the case when the new arrivals are from cultural backgrounds that are vastly dissimilar to that of the receiving society.  This paper will outline what those key challenges are, from the perspective of a Local Government area which has long experienced cultural diversity, but which has more recently become a target settlement area for Humanitarian Stream immigrants.  The paper also describes a recently-implemented project which has the objectives of linking new arrivals with established residents, introducing them to the services and opportunities provided by Local Government and to local clubs and organisations, expanding their knowledge of Australian norms, system of government and the rights and responsibilities due to residents.  The outcomes are anticipated to include a more cohesive and inclusive community, with new arrivals who understand how they can work with other members of the community to generate further community capacity - while maximising their own options and settlement process.

Beatriz Miralles-Lombardo (JM&A) & Barry Golding (Uni of Ballarat)

The refugee journey from trust to participation: The role of multicultural organisations

This paper highlights findings from our recent research that sought to identify the role of multicultural community organisations as surrogate English language and work skills learning organisations for refugee groups.  Through the study, our attention was drawn to the importance of networks and the qualities associated with them - trust, reciprocity, shared norms, and collaboration; usually and collectively referred to as social capital.

The study was funded by NCVER and examined network relationships as one of many possible indicators of social capital.  The research sought to explore, through the experiences of three refugee groups from – Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan, the role played by multicultural community organisations in creating what were hypothesised to be important informal networks and learning spaces connecting people from refugee backgrounds to the wider Australian community. 

In essence, our study looked for ways in which improved bridging networks led in turn towards improved literacy and language acquisition and refugee employability.  The research found that multicultural community organisations work to create the bridging networks, facilitating civic cohesion, improving literacy by ‘translating the sign posts’ and building individuals’ capacities to negotiate foreign cultural contexts.  Our research design therefore incorporates ways of examining how multicultural community organisations create supportive pathways into the wider community, linking refugees with an extensive network of other sectors, services and agencies. 

Eugenia Tsoulis (Migrant Resource Centre of SA)

Synchronising competing policies and service models towards effective participation

The Commonwealth Government has introduced a number of policy initiatives to support inclusivity and participation for all sectors of the community.  For humanitarian entrants and their family members following them through family reunion, policies designed to integrate humanitarian entrants into the broader society and to assist their independence are rigorous and each one stands alone as commendable.  Although all these initiatives independently and collectively are commendable in terms of seeking to address the challenges of developing real and sustainable pathways to inclusivity and full participation for all Australians, they nevertheless present a number of service planning and delivery issues that require resolving so that a very vulnerable group of migrants do not become further marginalised.  This paper will focus on how relevant parties – government and outsourced program providers – need to come together and move quickly to progress what are essentially sound policies.  There is a need for a partnership approach in identifying and addressing gaps and issues rather than having one program assuming authority over the others and subsuming other programs which have and continue to legitimise the Government’s policies on inclusivity and participation. 

Hussein Tahiri (Victoria Police)

“Counter Terrorism Policing and Culturally Diverse Communities”

Counter Terrorism Policing and Culturally Diverse Communities is a partnership project between Victoria Police and Monash University.  The project will present cutting edge research and investigate counter terrorism policing by focusing on the impact of counter terrorism measures on the police, community, media and legislative/policy framework.  An interdisciplinary approach is taken to the first ever examination of how counter terrorism is changing both the policing function and culturally and linguistically diverse communities.  It will produce a counter terrorism policing model that challenges traditional paramilitary responses to terrorism that centrally locates diverse communities/policing relationships at the heart of counter terrorism policing effort.  With cross jurisdictional application, the qualitative and quantitative data, will inform a broad scholarship with wide ranging policy implications at both the state and federal level.  Through this project the researchers hope that a community informed model of counter-terrorism policing can be developed that will contribute to alternative forms and representations of policing and thereby contribute to the strengths of multicultural democracy to stymie the spread of terrorist networks and protect human rights.  A model that rejects racism, discrimination and marginalisation, and works towards community integration.

Walter Jaros (Bahá'i Council of Tasmania)

Seeing Unity in Diversity and Cultivating World Citizenship

Fostering a cooperative, just and sustainable community inclusive of diverse peoples, in Australia and throughout the world, is an imperative of the twenty-first century.

Beyond the essential multicultural perspective which upholds the rights and honors the gifts of all, this challenge for the future will increasingly depend on cultivating a wider common identity of the oneness and interrelatedness of the whole human race, and a commitment to the responsibilities of world citizenship.  The teachings of the world-wide Bahá’í Faith provide useful perspectives for cultivating such unity in diversity, and provide practical approaches to accomplishing the types of learning and capacity-building which can contribute to positive social change.  Examples will be discussed of several relevant Bahá’í principles and programs, addressing harmony between ethnic and religious groups, the equality of women and men, consultative approaches to conflict resolution, promoting awareness of universal human rights, encouraging the virtues of character in children and adults, reinforcing the ideals of cooperation and service to humanity, and other issues related to creating a harmonious and peaceful world.   Practical suggestions will also be explored of ways to implement education for unity-building, peace-making and world citizenship in the Australian context.

Natasha Kukanja, Policy Officer, Aged Care, Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria

As the CALD older (65+) population is expected to peak in the next decade, it is timely for us to consider the increasing complexity of their needs as they age.

The proposed paper would focus on the need to recognise the aged care needs of post-war migrants.

The paper will examine some of the health, wellbeing and economic pressures relating to the experience of migration, and how these may influence the way in which migrants access services as they age.

The paper will highlight the need for health, welfare and aged care workers to develop cultural understanding and cross cultural communication skills in order to better understand and increase their responsiveness to the needs of CALD clients and their families. 

The paper will also argue the significant role of ethno-specific service providers as a necessary part of the mosaic of services accessible to our CALD older population, given the cultural and lingual expertise of these agencies and their established links and relationships with their respective communities.

Finally, the paper will consider current aged care policies and their effectiveness in deal with our older CALD population.

Farhadur Reza, Section Manager, Social Participation Section, Community Strategy Branch, Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

“Bringing Communities Together” strategic framework with a case study of Symposiums on Australia Muslims “Sharing Our Achievements”

The paper will discuss the Australian Federal Government’s strategy to promote social inclusion in Australian communities.  The Department of Families Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA) has established a strategic framework, “Bringing Communities Together”, to support a whole-of-government approach to enhancing social participation and social inclusion in Australian communities.  The strategy has been designed as a framework for working with communities with the goal of attaining social sustainability.  This model allows flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of communities.  It can be replicated, modified or enhanced depending on the target community or community of interest.  It also has the capacity to address the barriers or issues facing that particular community, as well as the tools and mechanisms to enhance social integration between, and among, communities.

As part of FaCSIA’s commitment to improving the lives of Australians and in line with the whole-of-government National Action Plan (NAP) to build on social cohesion, harmony and security focusing Australian Muslims, it has developed a series of national symposiums focusing on Australian Muslims which are being held nationally between February and June 2007.  The purpose of the symposiums is to capitalise on the “community strength based” approach to enhance social integration by sharing the achievements and success stories of Australian Muslims with the wider Australian community, as well as increasing awareness and understanding of Muslim culture and values.  The information and data collected from the symposiums will be used to inform government policy on social integration and participation under the “Bringing Communities Together” strategic framework.  The paper will share the learning and lessons from these events with the wider audience.

The “Bringing Communities Together” framework will be used as the basis for other social integration projects with other communities in need, such as refugees and humanitarian entrants, drought affected communities, youth and older Australians. 

Ron Mitchell (Multicultural Council of the Northern Territory)

Interfaith Education for the Global Citizen: Towards Unity and a Culture of Peace

Globalisation in the 21st Century imposes unrelenting and unprecedented change for all aspects of human activity and interaction.  In our increasingly close-knit pluralistic ‘global village’, cultures and religions which were once geographically and philosophically isolated, are drawn into closer contact.

In geopolitical terms Australia is situated in the most culturally, religiously and ethnically diverse region in the world.  An understanding of the diverse range of cultures and faiths in our global community – their histories and their perspectives – fosters mutual respect, compassion, inclusion and acceptance.

There is a growing awareness among education stakeholders and practitioners of the benefits of interfaith education.  Interfaith education challenges stereotypes, confronts discrimination and prejudice, nurtures and sustains a culture of peace, and empowers our young people to act in the long-term interests of the planet and humanity.

The Multicultural Council of the Northern Territory through its close working relationships with local schools, presents innovative experiential learning activities – excursions and information sessions – which provide the opportunity for interfaith interaction, and educate our future global citizens and peacemakers towards a globalisation that unites and humanises, rather than one that divides and marginalises.