Page 1373 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 2016
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The centre serves as a venue for multicultural peak bodies and cultural groups that support their respective members throughout the year. The centre is also home to Muslim prayers on Fridays, a Chinese seniors group, a Tongan language school, an Italian choir, English language classes, a multicultural youth centre and a range of other activities that benefit over 120,000 participants and visitors each year. And, appropriately, I am very proud to say it is home to over 26 Australian citizenship ceremonies every year.
In December 2015 this remarkable community space in the heart of our great city celebrated its 10th birthday. Indeed, the centre has grown to be a highly regarded community asset, symbolically in the heart of the capital city of Australia, for the numerous multicultural groups that make use of this facility. Likewise, our multicultural community has grown in the past 10 years, and while the centre continues to be a contemporary landmark for Canberra, we know that many of our cultural groups require more space to accommodate their annual cultural events and other activities.
For this reason, we are exploring options to support our cultural groups’ need for physical space into the future. For example, we are looking to increase the capacity of community facilities such as the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre by considering the relocation of non-community activities that are undertaken in these venues. We are also looking at ways school halls and gymnasiums around Canberra can be better utilised for community use when not needed by schools on weekends and after hours. We are also looking at existing grants programs to provide the funding for community groups to gain easier access to suitable venues for their activities in Canberra.
As I have mentioned, our community partners play a critical role in delivering our harmonious community. I would like to talk about some of the organisations that we fund. Migrant and Refugee Settlement Services is funded to provide support and settlement services for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The service assists new arrivals to find accommodation, employment, training and education services, family support, financial management and community engagement.
Multicultural Youth Services provides supports to young asylum seekers, migrants, refugees and people from culturally diverse backgrounds. This service provides information, referral, consumer protection and financial literacy programs, participation in tailored school holiday programs and coordination of activities and play groups for young parents.
The ACT Canberra language schools association is funded to promote advocacy and support for community-based language schools in the ACT, and to provide additional support to the community language school to enable additional training for languages other than English teachers in the ACT.
The Canberra Multicultural Community Forum receives funding to support its advocacy work for the benefit of Canberra’s multicultural community. An important component of this funding supports a multicultural network for culturally and linguistically diverse women, focusing on specific issues such as preventing discrimination and domestic violence.
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