MYAN NSW’s Let’s Settle In project was a series of interactive workshops to welcome and share skills and knowledge to newly arrived refugee students to assist them in their transition to Australia.
During Term 4 at Bankstown Senior College Intensive English Centre (IEC), 20 students and 3 Youth Peer Facilitators from MYAN would gather weekly to discuss life in Australia. Bankstown IEC is a unique educational environment, catering specifically for those who are over 17 years of age and within their first years of learning English.
Before the term began, our Multicultural Youth Ambassadors got together to discuss how to make each class memorable, interactive and catered to varying English levels. We have a firm belief that young people with lived migration and refugee experience are uniquely placed to reflect on and define the challenges that new arrivals face when settling in Australia.
With this insight, the workshops over the term looked like this:
- WEAVE Youth Advocates from Aboriginal backgrounds teaching students how to do an acknowledgment to country and sharing about culture and places of significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
- A tour of a firetruck and learning from Australia Red Cross about emergency preparedness.
- Bankstown Amazing Race: Thanks to the partnerships with the local youth services, PCYC, Youth Off the Streets, Greenlight Movement and Bankstown Multicultural Youth Services, we were able to pull off an incredible race that ended with lunch, prizes and dancing!
- Workshops on Aussie Slang, knowing your rights, volunteering,
- The Welcome Dinner Project hosting a multicultural feast finale!
“I learnt about my local youth service thanks to the Amazing Race and now I’ve signed up with them.”
Three of our Youth Ambassadors were employed as youth peer facilitators to co-deliver each workshop. Reflecting on their role, one peer facilitator shared, “I got to develop new skills and strengthen other ones too, and at the same time learnt about youth services and other migrant experiences.” Special thanks to Arleen Wilcox, Assala Sayara and Simon Shahin for being great facilitators!
MYAN NSW’s Multicultural Youth Ambassadors program mentors and supports young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds to build knowledge, skills and confidence around the change-making process, providing them with the tools and techniques to create social change.
“I got to develop new skills and strengthen other ones too, and at the same time learnt about youth services and other migrant experiences.”
Funding for the Let’s Settle In project has been provided by the NSW Government through Multicultural NSW.
If you’d like to learn more about the Multicultural Youth Ambassador program, contact Hannah at hannah@myannsw.org.au.