By BRIDGET COOK
A WORKSHOP will be held in Hampton Park this week aimed at preventing violent extremism in culturally diverse communities.
The community is invited to take part in the free ‘Building Resilient Communities for the Future: A Community Dialogue’ workshop on Thursday at the Arthur Wren Hall.
The workshop is being run as part of the Women Against Violent Extremism (WAVE) project, run by the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Coalition.
Project worker Su Sullivan said Thursday’s workshop was one of four events being held across the south-east as part of the WAVE project.
“WAVE aims to build women’s capacity to identify early signs of radicalisation within members of their families and communities and provide support to those at risk of radicalisation,” she said.
“The project is aimed at building the leadership capacity of women from Middle Eastern, African, and Asian backgrounds in selected municipalities in the south-eastern region of Melbourne so that they can lead their families and communities towards building resilience and harmony.”
Ms Sullivan said they already had 40 members of the community registered for Thursday’s event, both men and women and from mainstream and ethnic backgrounds, and anyone else was welcome to register.
She said the workshop would be all about creating conversations between Cultural and Linguistic Diversity (CALD) communities and service providers.
“This activity aims to provide conflict resolution knowledge and skills for the CALD communities to prevent damaged relationships which could lead to violent extremism,” she said.
“It’s about creating dialogue between community providers and local residents.
“Sometimes service providers and agencies don’t know what the community want.
“We can provide participants with knowledge of how to talk, deal with and solve conflict they encounter.”
As part of the WAVE project, two Women Building Resilient Communities (WBRC) training courses and a WBRC Family Camp have already been held.
The two WBRC training courses were run in June and August, with more than 40 women representing 23 nationalities taking part.
The training course was a seven-day program which engaged women in a range of activities to develop confidence, critical thinking, knowledge, skills and leadership qualities.
The WBRC Family Camp was held last month with 97 participants from 34 families signing up.
The camp focused on relationship building within and between families through fun activities and workshops.
WAVE is funded by the Attorney General’s Department under its Building Community Resilience grants program.
To sign up for Thursday’s community dialogue event call Ms Sullivan on 0487 386 507 or email wave.virwc@gmail.com.
It will be held from 9.30am to 2.30pm at the Arthur Wren Hall, Hampton Park. Lunch will be provided.
