MCWH does not offer student placements, internships or opportunities to volunteer with our organisation.

We truly respect and honour the work of volunteers, who make a significant contribution to the workforce and often play a crucial role in supporting the work of not-for-profit organisations.

We also acknowledge that for many newly arrived migrants and people starting their career, volunteering can be an important way to gain local experience that may lead to paid work.

However, the history of migrant and refugee women’s work has often involved:

• Undervaluing migrant and refugee women’s labour, expertise and time
• Assuming that unpaid work (such as parenting or caring) is not “real work”
• Exploiting migrant and refugee women’s time and expertise through unpaid consultation or community organising

For these reasons, and without the organisational resources or capacity to properly support volunteers, MCWH does not recruit volunteers to accomplish our goals.

We believe it is important to recognise and, whenever possible, remunerate migrant and refugee women for their work. At this time, recruiting volunteers to help us in our work doesn’t sit comfortably with that position.

There are circumstances in which we welcome and are extremely grateful for offers of pro bono help and support, including donations.

We also acknowledge that our projects and programs benefit from the unpaid expertise and time of our participants and the many partner organisations, community leaders and advocates who work for and support their communities in infinite ways.

Please follow us on social media and on www.ethicaljobs.org.au where we advertise all of our paid employment opportunities.