We were pleased to provide input from the multicultural sector to this initiative of the Migrant Mental Health Taskforce of the Victorian Mental Health Reform Council. Key stakeholders met to workshop issues related to migrants and refugees. The Council will use these issues to produce a report for the Minister for Mental Health and staff from the Department of Health.

This was a timely opportunity for ECCV to influence the development of the mental health sector as national and state mental health reforms are currently underway.

Ross spoke about the expectations that Victoria's ethnic communities have of the sector. For a copy of the speech click here.

ECCV has prioritised mental health issues across aged care, health and youth policy areas in 2011. Click here for a copy of the ECCV discussion paper A Better Way - mental health & aged care, a multicultural perspective.

To rule you need power and in this century information is the real power.

In Tunisia last week the Arab bloggers conference began with hundreds of bloggers across the region arriving to share their social media knowledge.

Using global media technology, these young Arabs have been a driving force in the protests across the Middle East these past 10 months.

One Syrian blogger said the American Occupy Wall Street movement was now learning from them how best to use social media campaigns.

These movements tell us that we, as global citizens, must learn to respect and understand diverse opinions if we are to live successfully in a modern world.

Australia remains strong in its commitment to democracy, intercultural awareness and mutual respect.

The Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria draws its vision from these universal values; values also held by the United Nations.

Our organisation’s patron Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser recently called on Australian political leaders to renew their commitment to these principles.

Our organisation advocates to give Victorians of all backgrounds a voice in our community and we represent sixty different ethnicities covering 100,000 members.

Our members have hybrid identities and are often part of global information communities, connected across the internet. 

I escaped to Australia in 1984 during the war in Lebanon, with the belief I would return to Lebanon once the war ended. Only in 1993 did I make the commitment to call Australia home and I am now a proud Victorian Australian - Lebanese.

Hybrid identities bring many benefits to Victorian community life such as cultural and language knowledge, skills bases and international perspectives.  

There are also additional needs of a diverse population which must be addressed.   

In Victoria, new and emerging communities face challenges such as; employment barriers, access to housing, media stereotyping and strained relations with law enforcement.

More established communities face challenges such as; cultural maintenance, access to aged care facilities and appropriate language services.

ECCV leads policy initiatives across a broad range of sectors including youth, health and aged care, new and emerging communities and women.

Advocacy organisations such as ours cannot afford to react to community need once it reaches the point of crisis.

We deliver policy that anticipates emerging trends. We believe that successful policy depends on building cohesive national and international partnerships to serve the needs of our diverse community.

While there have been many positive improvements in acknowledging the vital role of diversity in Australia, in public debate there is still room for improvement. 

The release of the Scanlon Foundation report last week strongly highlighted the relationship between media reporting, public perception and the experiences of our migrant communities.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the survey revealed a significant number of Australians hold negative attitudes towards asylum seekers and Muslim immigrant groups.

The survey also revealed that under a quarter of Australians accurately knew how many asylum seekers arrived by boat each year and many believe that migration was rising in Australia, despite a fall in net migration last year.

Public perceptions like these show us the powerful role media coverage of emotional political arguments plays in influencing public opinion.

ECCV has initiated a bold media strategy to proactively improve media coverage of ethnic communities from within the industry.

Our organisation is currently working with SBS, RMIT and Macquarie Universities to build a journalism mentoring program. This program will build media pathways for refugee and migrant students into the media industry.

At the regulatory level, ECCV is working in consultation with the Australian Press Council to improve media reporting guidelines for non-English speaking communities.

In uncertain political and economic times, we must remain committed to social cohesion.

We must avoid using multiculturalism as a scapegoat for the civic challenges we face.

Victorians have a strong role to play in promoting the value of multiculturalism and diversity in our global society, regardless who is in government. I invite the Australian political parties to work together to agree on solutions addressing issues of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, because these issues will define Australia’s future.

Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

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Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

First of all I am going to tell you a bit about the role of ECCV and how we relate to the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA) as well as the link with the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VMC).

7.00pm, Thursday 22 October 2009
G PLACE, Golden Point Learning & Cultural Environment, Cnr
Dunn & English Sts, Golden Point, Ballarat

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Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

Gratitude for a system of government that allows the expression of concern and dissent and institutes specific protections for those most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society.

6:30pm, Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Springvale Town Hall
397 – 405 Springvale Road
Springvale
[ Melways ref – 79 : K11 ]

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Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

I do think a broader argument can – and should – be madeabout a general failure by both the government and theprivate sectors to keep an eye on the future when it comes toall aspects of social and cultural policy.

4.00pm, Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Room G470
Victoria University
Footscray Park Campus
Ballarat Rd
Footscray
Melways ref – 2S : F4.

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Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

I think the diversity of sectors represented here today clearly demonstrates the broad interest in, and genuine commitment to, addressing this issue, which I regret to say, still remains something of a taboo among some sections of our multicultural society.

10.00am, Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Multicultural Hub, 506 Elizabeth Street

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Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

Pulling together has always been one of the hallmarks of Victoria’s migrant and multicultural communities, so I am not surprised to see so many local businesses and members of the community pitch in to help stage tonight’s gala event.

Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council 2009 Gala Ball Fundraising Event
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Mining Exchange
Historic Lydiard Street
Ballarat

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Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

It’s a pleasure to be with you today for this special joint event to promote the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria’s Multicultural Multiactive Seniors Program, and to launch the Hampton Park Turkish Seniors Group.

10:45am – 12:15pm
Wednesday, 29th April 2009
Hampton Park Senior Citizens Club
Corner of Pound Road and Narellan Drive, Hampton Park

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Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

In all the world

there never were two opinions exactly alike,

Just as there were never more than two hairs …

or two grains exactly alike.

The most universal quality is diversity.

 

-- Michel de Montaigne (French philosopher during the Renaissance)

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Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV)

DHS Cultural Diversity Forum - 20 March 2008

Good morning. It’s a pleasure to join you this morning for this special DHS Cultural Diversity Forum and hear the Ministers’ assurance of the Victorian Government’s commitment to cultural diversity. I’d like to begin to begin by acknowledging the original custodians of the land where we gather, and paying my respects to Joy Wandin-Murphy, and any other elders who may be present.

I’d also like to thank our event partners: the Department of Human Services (DHS), and the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VMC) for their assistance in organising today’s forum. As the peak body representing ethnic and multicultural communities in Victoria and key liaison point with government, ECCV believes it is essential that the free-flow of ideas between service bodies, decision makers and the public be as frequent and far-reaching as practicable.

On that note, I’d like to thank each of the Ministers for taking the time to join us today and show such an active interest in issues regarding community service delivery to culturally diverse communities. Finally, it would be remiss of me not to add a special word of congratulations to George Lekakis and his team at the Victorian Multicultural Commission who are celebrating 25 years of dedicated service to Victoria’s multicultural community. I had the pleasure of attending the VMC’s annual Multicultural Gala Dinner hosted by the Premier last Saturday night – the feature event of Cultural Diversity Week – which was a wonderful event as always.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Cultural Diversity Week is one of my favourite times of the year. The smorgasbord of different activities, exhibitions, workshops, and public forums is a timely reminder that as Victorians, we truly are blessed by choice. By way of a neat plug, I should note that the ECCV has joined forces with some of the local community organisations in Carlton to host an array of family-oriented activities later this afternoon on the grounds of the Carlton Housing Estate.

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Special Guest Speaker - Tom Calma

On 27 November, National Race Discrimination Commissioner and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, delivered the following speech to the Annual General Meeting of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria. Commissioner Calma spoke about the continuing struggle , some 40 years after the 1967 Referendum, to improve the rights and living conditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples . He also spoke about the future of multiculturalism and the need for a policy framework that ensures that the rights of people from racially and culturally diverse backgrounds are upheld

Good evening distinguished guest, ladies and gentleman. Friends, I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations.

Can I also thank, Chairperson Phong Nguyen and the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria for inviting me to speak at your AGM. And I acknowledge the presence of Ms Voula Messimeri the Chairperson of Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Australia. It is a privilege and an honour to be speaking with you this evening on issues close to my heart – Indigenous affairs and multiculturalism.

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Culturally and linguistically diverse communities and drug prevention: overcoming the barriers

October 30, 2007 Angliss Conference Centre, Melbourne

By Phong Nguyen Chairperson Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria

Introduction

My talk today will cover a range of topics in relation to prevention strategies and services for culturally and linguistically diverse communities in the areas of drugs and alcohol. I am very happy to be speaking here today as I have a longstanding interest in the area and have served on the Premiers Drug Prevention Council for a number of years in my capacity as Director of the Springvale Indo-Chinese Mutual Assistance Association.

But first, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land, as well as any Indigenous Elders, past and present, in the room today.

There are three main points that I will cover today.

1. I would first like to take the opportunity to acknowledge some of the achievements and progress made in the area of drug and alcohol prevention and services for multicultural communities.
2. I will then consider some of the challenges ahead in terms of delivering culturally competent services to CALD communities in Victoria, with particular reference to our new and emerging communities.
3. Thirdly, I will outline some of the strategies and future directions that I see as necessary in the area of drugs and alcohol.

Much of what I have to say today in relation to drugs and alcohol and multicultural communities is neither original, new nor groundbreaking. Many of the issues and possible solutions that I wish to raise with you today have been identified in previous seminars, forums and reports.

Nonetheless, working towards addressing the challenges for culturally and linguistically diverse communities in the area of drugs and alcohol is important work.

And it is good to take the opportunity today to reflect on where we are now, what are the key challenges, and the end goal we are striving towards.

Download the full Challenges for CALD Drug & Alcohol Service Delivery (40 KB) speech.

Address by Peter van Vliet , Executive Officer

Thank you for the opportunity to speak at today’s forum and I welcome you all. May I begin by paying my respects to the traditional indigenous owners of the land and their elders past and present.

It gives me great pleasure to speak on behalf of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria today on the changing face of the Victorian community.

When Gaetano asked me to speak today he said he wanted the stats on multiculturalism in Victoria and inner-North Melbourne.

So my speech today will include many statistics. If you are numerically challenged I advise you to switch off and go and make yourself a cup of coffee.

But before I get too far into the details, the key fact to remember is Victoria is arguably Australia’s most multicultural state. And here in Darebin you are right in the epicentre of multicultural Victoria.

And with today’s forum in mind, the multicultural component of your local population definitely peaks in the older age groups. Firstly today I want to speak on the changing face of Victoria and then I will hone in on the Darebin and Moreland areas. As I said earlier Victoria is arguably Australia’s most multicultural state, just ahead of New South Wales.

In Victoria 20% of the population or one million out of five million people speak a language other than English at home. 43.5% of Victorians including myself were either born overseas or have one or more parents born overseas. That’s 2.2 million people!

This huge increase in multicultural Melbourne has predominantly been the result of post-war migration which saw one million migrants come to Victoria, mostly from Europe. We can look at Victoria’s social history as having three phases. The indigenous phase up until around 1830. The Anglo-Celtic Australian phase up until the second world war and then the multicultural phase from about 1950 on.

In more recent years Victoria’s migrant intake has been much more diverse than during the post-war period. Today Victoria’s migrants come from countries like India, Sudan and Sri-Lanka as well as our traditional feeder country of the United Kingdom. From the 1970s we also saw a significant intake of Vietnamese migrants which continues today.

But the continental Europeans have largely stopped migrating to Victoria as the European economies have recovered. This means that many of our continental European groups have ageing populations. The other significant feature of Victoria’s population is that it is ageing rapidly. Within a year the seniors, or over 60 population will be one million or around one in five Victorians. And in that ageing community there is massive diversity. It is worth noting that in just five years—2011—38% of the over-65 population in Melbourne will be from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

That’s a powerful statistic—38% of over-65s across Melbourne will be from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds by 2011.

By country of birth the Italian, Greek, German, Polish and Dutch communities are now the largest older culturally and linguistically divers populations in Victoria in that order. By 2021 the oldest Victorian CALD communities in order will be the Italian, Greek, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Macedonian communities. This shows the eventual emergence of Asian communities in our community’s ageing profile.

Victorians are living longer than ever and we have lower birth rates. But by 2044 more than one quarter of Victorians will be over the age of 65, hopefully including me. This all adds up to an older community.

This also causes economic strains. Currently in Victoria we have six taxpayers for every retiree but in 25 year there will only be three taxpayers per retiree. Further still we are not only in the grips an ageing crisis we are also in the grips of a related skills crisis.

By 2010 Victoria is expected to have a shortage of somewhere around 50,000 skilled workers. In Australia the skilled workers shortage will be around 200,000. This scenario is set to make some of our in-demand skilled tradespeople small fortunes.

Our combined ageing and skills crises point to the need for a continued strong immigration program despite the present anti-immigration rumblings of some federal members of parliament. But that is an argument for another day.

Having looked at the statistics across Victoria I now want to look briefly at the statistics in Darebin and Northland where we are today. This includes the suburbs of Preston, Brunswick, Glenroy and Pascoe Vale, Northcote, Fairfield and Thornbury.

Can I firstly say that in Darebin and Moreland you are living very much in the heart of Victorian multiculturalism.

Moreland and Darebin rank 5th and 6th respectively of the 79 Victorian local government areas with the highest percentage of speakers of languages other than English at home. So for cultural diversity you are ranked 6th and 7th out of 79.

According to our 2001 census just over 40% of residents in both municipalities speak a language other than English at home. That’s a huge figure.

But if we drill down further and look at our senior citizens the multicultural population in these two municipalities gets even bigger.

Currently in the City of Darebin, around 9,000 people or 47% of the 65+ age cohort are from CALD backgrounds. Darebin’s CALD numbers will exceed 50% of the 65+ population in the next ten years.

In the City of Moreland the ethnic seniors’ figure is higher still with 10,000 people—already 50% of Moreland’s seniors’ population.

In Darebin and Moreland the top five over-65 or older ethnic communities are somewhat different to the rest of Melbourne.

The largest older ethnic groups are the Italians with around 10,000 older people, followed by the Greeks with around 4,000, Maltese with around 600, and Arabic and Macedonian people with around 500.

So the older population in this area has a more strongly Mediterranean feel than the rest of Victoria. For instance the number of German, Polish or Dutch older people is smaller in this area when compared with other parts of metropolitan Melbourne.

So in Moreland and Darebin and more or less in Melbourne cultural diversity is now the mainstream, not the marginal! It’s difficult to argue against multiculturalism when you are multicultural.

But what do all these figures mean. It’s great to throw around statistics but they do need a practical policy context.

What the figures mean is that the State of Victoria has a huge policy challenge not just with population ageing but with older people from non-English speaking migrant backgrounds.

For this significant component of our ageing population we have to ge culturally competent service delivery right. We know that as people age they often revert to their first language. We know many people need more care as they get older.

That is why at Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria we recently released our Multicultural Aged Care Strategy for Victoria’s political parties in the lead up to our State Election.

With many of our post-war immigrants now entering their senior years, there has never been a more urgent need for a comprehensive government policy that addresses the needs of this large cohort of our ageing population.

ECCV’s Multicultural Aged Care Strategy calls for a comprehensive state government policy to address this issue.

This would include strengthening the capacity of ethno-specific service providers to effectively deliver home and community care or HACC services. Services like meals on wheels, activity groups and home help.

The Multicultural Aged Care Strategy includes allowing for more client choice in selecting HACC services. Clients should be able to chose between different service providers as is often the case with residential aged care services. We should be wary of monopoly providers. A diverse community needs diverse services.

ECCV also wants greater funding of ethnic senior citizens clubs so they can run healthy living programs. We want our ethnic seniors to benefit from active and healthy living programs. We also want to ensure any elder abuse in ethnic communities is appropriately addressed.

So getting back to Gaetano’s original question I can say “yes”, Melbourne’s population is ageing, and ‘yes’ our community is very multicultural. Further in Darebin and Moreland you have a large and growing older ethnic population which is predominantly Mediterranean.

In conclusion, Victoria’s ethnic seniors’ population is rising as our post-war migrants age. We need to respond appropriately to the needs of this growing group and I do hope that today’s forum assists with that challenge.

Our post-war migrants have made an enormous contribution to the Victorian community. They have built this state into the economic, social and cultural powerhouse that it is today.

It is important that we give something back to this community in their time of need. ECCV is committed to this challenge. We hope the incoming State Government shares this passion and commits to a multicultural aged care strategy after our November election.

I wish you all the best with today’s forum and I look forward to hearing of the proceedings. Thank you.

By Voula Messimeri, Chair of FECCA and Deputy Chair of ECCV

Integration Conference: Melbourne Park Hyatt Hotel, August 21, 2007

Having heard the various spin on the ‘integration’ word —with both its positive and negative connotations—I now wanted to focus on the word and policy of multiculturalism and argue that multiculturalism is as important as it has ever been in ensuring both effective settlement of migrants and on-going social cohesion in Australian society today.

Multiculturalism first became prominent in the mid 1970s amidst a growing realisation that policies of assimilation and integration were less effective in providing decent and equitable settlement outcomes for new migrant communities.

The1978 Galbally Report which focussed on ways of helping migrants settle into Australian life, of maintaining their cultures, and of ensuring they had the same rights and access to services as other Australians was the critical intellectual shaper of the multicultural policies that followed it under the Fraser and Hawke- Keating governments.

Effective settlement, cultural maintenance and equitable access to services are hardly revolutionary concepts. They are some of the core concepts that underpin multiculturalism.

At its essence multiculturalism recognises the great cultural diversity within the Australian community. It enables people to freely and proudly express their cultural heritage while uniting around core civic values like democracy and the rule of law. It enables people to feel at home regardless of where they have come from.

Multiculturalism can be considered to represent core principles like fairness, respect, anti-racism, non-discrimination, and equality of opportunity—regardless of the cultural, linguistic or religious background of an individual.

Download the full Multiculturalism: The Way Forward (21 KB) speech.