Brokerage

Strengthening the Community Grants

‘Strengthening the Community’ Grants were created to give opportunities for young people connected to the Western Region of Melbourne to run their own initiatives. The successful projects that we funded include:

1. Centacare received funding for the ‘Let Us Grow with Each Other’ Project. This is about bringing together 12 young people from Burmese and African backgrounds to participate in a cultural awareness event that will include traditional dance performances and ethnic fashion parade with 2 primary schools.

2. Ethiopian Youth Association received funding for the ‘Exposure’ Project which will give emerging refugee youth artists the chance to perform and tackle the problem of racism and discrimination by bringing diverse community and stakeholder groups together.

3. Lost Boys Association of Australia was funded for the ‘Soccer Tournament’ Program which will bring young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds together to play soccer in a non-competitive environment.

4. The Youth Junction received funding for the ‘Youth Leadership’ Project by involving young people’s participation on a 2 day camp to give them the opportunity to understand more about being a leader and the roles and responsibilities that entails.

5. Young people in conjunction with Wyndham City Council Youth Services received funding for the ‘Remorse’ Project. This project aims to give young people from CALD backgrounds the opportunity to express themselves through music and dance and give them a sense of belonging, confidence, self esteem and deterrence from illegal activities.

WYPIN also held an afternoon tea with the grant recipients to find out more about their projects and also for them to provide us with feedback in relation to the funding process. From this session, we discovered two barriers that stopped young people from organising recreational activities or events;

• Financial challenges, and
• The requirement that the youth group be incorporated in order to book a hall or a ground.

This valuable feedback is not only essential for WYPIN to advocate for change but also helps us to make it easier for young people to apply for WYPIN grants in the future.

By Toruna Ujoodah and May Toke