Maribyrnong Cr Jorge Jorquera
Maribyrnong City Council is asking the community to be part of a ‘new’ campaign to call out racism as part of an ongoing commitment to reducing racist attitudes within our city and beyond.
The campaign, based on a Sydney model, uses ‘street signs’ to send a strong message that racism is NOT welcome. While these sign will be a tangible symbol demonstrating solidarity as a community, it is the actions we, as a community, collectively take – to champion the rights of cultural expression, maintain community language, community organisation and global citizenry – that will truly demonstrate meaningful cultural diversity.
There are two current initiatives in this regard which I urge our community to support. One is the advocacy by VietSpeak, working with university partners, to establish a Vietnamese-English bilingual program in an early childhood setting. For a community that has given so much to the west, supporting the multigenerational survival of the Vietnamese language is the least we can do.
The second is the work by Africause to establish a youth sports and activity hub, where young people from culturally diverse backgrounds can come together to participate in sport and other social, educational and community building activities.
The Africause Hub aims to support young people with mentorships, training, referral services and education support. It would also provide increasingly needed social supports for young people who often lack a sense of belonging, safety and community inclusion.
As we are now seeing in the case of Sydney’s COVID lockdown, migrant communities can easily be blamed for community frustrations and hardship. The #racismNOTwelcome campaign is all about rejecting such scapegoating and working to support communities who, for reasons of economic insecurity and social exclusion, are some of the hardest hit by the pandemic.
I hope to soon see these signs all around Maribyrnong – near schools and libraries, at parks, in main shopping and dining areas! Most importantly, I hope to see the spirit of solidarity and anti-racism of the west out on show, supporting the communities working to make our city a truly multicultural hub.
