June has certainly been a busy month! We celebrated World Refugee Day on June 20th– such an important day to MCWH as we experience the positive contribution immigrant and refugee women make to Australian society on a daily basis.
Also this month, Australian of the Year 2015 Rosie Batty continued to highlight the issue of family violence with the launch of her Never Alone campaign, urging that discussions and policies about domestic violence take centre stage in both the public and political arena. We made our own contribution to the discussion by submitting our recommendations to the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence.
Refugee and immigrant women particularly need to be included in these discussions as they face unique barriers in escaping family violence- an issue we explore in this month’s WRAP.
We also take a look at how our new project, Our Voices, Changing Cultures, is using the power of theatre to express, explore and discuss mental health issues, specifically in young, same-sex attracted women from refugee and migrant backgrounds. An apt time, given the end of pride month in the USA and the wonderful Supreme Court ruling in favour of marriage equality!
Lastly, we are very excited to launch our nationally accredited course in Multicultural Women’s Health Education for Bilingual Community Educators – the first of its kind in Australia. It offers community bilingual educators the knowledge and skills required to effectively communicate and facilitate health education sessions with immigrant and refugee women.
We hope you enjoy reading!
Until next time,
The WRAP team