Cultural Awareness

African drummers provided the entertainment when the Sutherland Shire Multicultural Network recently held The 4th Annual Sutherland Cultural Awareness Day at TAFE NSW Loftus Campus. I was lucky enough to go along and to attend four of the workshops held on the day, the focus of which was learning more about working with culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Many of the problems facing newly arrived migrants and refugees are the same problems which confront those of us who were born here. We all need access to the same basic services but newly arrived migrants and refugees have the added issues of trying to integrate into what may be a very foreign culture.
One of the speakers was himself a refugee and had spent 8 months in detention at Villawood. His talk was inspring and his message was in part that the best thing we can do is to reach out to newly arrived migrants and refugees to help them as best we can. Make them feel welcome and help them settle into life in a new land. He also emphasised the importance of teaching English language skills to new arrivals.
In the Sydney metro area there are literally hundreds of agencies and organisations aimed at providing support and services for newly arrived migrants and refugees. As information workers we should try to acqaint ourselves with such resources so that when newly arrived migrants and refugees come asking us for help, we at least know of some of the better starting points. You could try

The Ethnic Communities Council of NSW
and

The Refugee Council