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Welcome to the December edition of the MYAN Australia e-Newsletter. As the final edition for 2015, it includes highlights of the MYAN’s work across Australia, as well as current resources and events.
The MYAN would like to thank you for your support and contributions to promoting the needs and interests of young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds across Australia in 2015. We wish you a safe and happy festive season and look forward to another exciting year in 2016!
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Youth Ambassadors Network
Introducing the 'YAN to the MYAN'
Members of the YAN: Mohammed Omar Maroof (ACT), Sarah Yahya (NSW), Ajer Alier Deng (SA), Yai Mario-Ring (Tas), Ziagul Sultani (WA), Celia Tran (Vic), Paul Joseph (QLD). (Absent: Joyce Oyela Hakim, NT)
The MYAN is very excited to introduce the newly appointed members of the Youth Ambassadors Network (YAN) to the MYAN. Emerging from the MYAN's 2014 national multicultural youth summit, FUSE, the YAN has been developed by young people and is Australia's first national multicultural youth network. The YAN will play an important role in supporting the MYAN's work and bringing a multicultural youth perspective to a range of national projects and forums.
More information about the YAN, including updates on their work, will be available on the MYAN website in 2016.
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UNHCR Global Refugee Youth Consultations
An initiative of the Youth and Adolescents in Emergencies Group (YAE), the Global Refugee Youth Consultations (GRYC) are being led by the UNHCR and the Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) in preparation for the 2016 annual UNHCR-NGO Consultations, with the theme of 'Youth'.
The consultations in Australia will be led through a partnership between the MYAN and the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) and are an exciting opportunity for young people from refugee backgrounds in Australia to be involved in advocacy at the local, state, national and international levels.
Supported by the MYAN's state/territory networks and organisations, as well as the YAN to the MYAN, consultations are planned for each of Australia's states and territories, including regional areas, between February and April 2016. The consultations will be complemented by the selection of youth delegates to attend meetings in Geneva in 2016, and the opportunity for reporting back at a national youth and sector event in September 2016. More information, including how you can get involved, will be available in early 2016.
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MYAN signs RECONGNISE CALD Supporter Accord
On 4 December 2015, the MYAN signed the RECOGNISE CALD Supporter Accord pledging our support in promoting the campaign within culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
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RECOGNISE is the people's movement to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution and ensure there's no place in it for racial discrimination. The MYAN looks forward to supporting the campaign in 2016. Read more about RECOGNISE here.
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Education pathways for young asylum seekers and refugees on TPVs and SHEVs
MYAN Australia and RCOA hosted a teleconference in November on education pathways for young asylum seekers and refugees on TPVs and SHEVs. With over 60 participants from across Australia, representing a range of sectors (and over 90 now on the mailing list), the teleconference reflected the significant interest in finding solutions to education barriers for this group of young people. The MYAN and RCOA have since collated and shared a range of resources to support the breadth of work occurring in this area and future advocacy work. RCOA has also released a report that is available here.
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From the implementation of new and exciting programs and partnerships, to new staff coming on board, 2015 has been a year of consolidation for many of the MYAN networks and organisations in the states and territories. Here is a quick snapshot!
On 4 December 2015, MYAN NSW celebrated it's first year in operation. MYAN NSW is the first ever independent state-wide organisation supporting the needs of young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds in NSW. During 2015, MYAN NSW also welcomed its new Executive Officer, Alex Long. Alex has dived into the role, engaging with young people, the sector and running training and has big plans for 2016!
MYAN TAS built on the amazing momentum generated from statewide consultations and the resulting report (released in March) to engage in a range of strategies to reduce the disparity between rates of employment for young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds and their Australian-born counterparts.
MYAN WA celebrated its first year under the auspice of YACWA, with network meetings bursting at the seams and an exciting youth-led consultation project for the Commission for Children and Young People. This project undertook consultations with young people from culturally and linguistically diverse children and young people and a Snapshot of key findings is now available. MYAN WA have some exciting things in the works for 2016, including the multicultural youth-led Catalyst Youth Summit to be held in Perth in February 2016.
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Report released on education pathways for young asylum seekers and refugees on TPVs or SHEVs
Informed by the teleconference and RCOA's national community consultations, RCOA recently released the report Barriers to education for people seeking asylum and refugees on temporary visas. The report details the barriers to education for people seeking asylum and refugees granted TPVs and SHEVs and includes recommendations for how these barriers may be effectively addressed. It also includes a list of scholarships open to asylum seekers and those on temporary visas. Read the Media Release here.
Game Plan
CMY (Victoria) has launched a suite of resources to help support sports clubs to increase their cultural diversity. The Game Plan resources will also help attract and retain young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds in sport and sports clubs.
Increasing cultural diversity in an organisation is possible when the organisation is more culturally inclusive. Game Plan provides an introduction to how to do this for sports clubs, sporting bodies, State Sporting Associations and other organisations working with sports clubs and associations. Find out more here
Young refugees share stories of hope and achievement
During 2015 a number of wonderful social media campaigns, videos, media stories and projects undertook to give young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds a platform to share their stories.
Watch this story by Allan Clarke from online media outlet Buzzfeed, who reports on a group of inspiring young Australians in Western Sydney doing amazing things and sharing stories of hope and achievement in Australia.
UWS created a powerful and beautifully produced ad retelling the UWS alumnus Deng Adut's story of strength and achievement. The ad is a wonderful example of the power of story telling and comes at a time when the broader refugee and asylum seeker sectors are making increasing investments in story telling and messaging. (See for example, the ASRC's recent Refuge from our Rhetoric event and commissioned research or the .)
Also during 2015, CMY received funding from the Melbourne Lard Mayor's Charitable Foundation to produce a series of videos as part of the This is Me project. The videos highlight the journey of refugee and migrant young people as they make Australia their new home.
Settlement Council of Australia (SCOA) Triennial International Conference 2016
Following the resounding success of SCoA’s 2012 conference, SCoA has responded to stakeholder feedback and, for the first time, will engage beyond Australia’s borders to bring together a breadth of exemplary presenters to contribute to the 2016 international conference. The conference, to be held in May 2016, has the theme ‘Settlement and Citizenship in Civil Society’ acknowledging the impact of the global domain on communities, societies and active citizenship. Register for conference here.
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