Culturally and Linguistically Diverse
Projects with Action Research (CALD PAR)
Project Stories
ANROWS supported CALD PAR projects to take an action research approach to their activities.
With this support, CALD PAR projects have used action research in innovative ways to listen to and build evidence with communities on “what works” for the prevention of violence against women and creating safer pathways to access support services for CALD communities.
These CALD PAR project stories provide insights into their action research process so far, key learnings from ongoing project activities and recommendations for policy-makers and practitioners.
CALD Communities Leading Prevention Stream
These projects work with culturally and linguistically diverse communities focusing on the prevention of violence against women and their children.
Some people may find parts of this content confronting or distressing.
Recommended support services include: 1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732 Lifeline: 13 11 14
Note: CALD PAR projects have created these stories and their views and content cannot be attributed to ANROWS.
VICTORIAN COOPERATIVE ON CHILDREN’S SERVICES FOR ETHNIC GROUPS (VICSEG) (VIC)
Cultural Playgroups in Diverse Communities – Promoting Family and Community Safety
VICSEG’s project uses existing cultural and language specific playgroups as a platform to explore respectful relationships and raising children.
VICSEG provided professional development and support for 20 playgroup facilitators to facilitate sensitive conversations about the nature of intimate partner relationships and how culture impacts on relationships, gender roles and raising children with parents.
The VICSEG project used action research to explore the benefits, challenges and outcomes of doing prevention work and increasing awareness of support services in playgroup settings. The project also created a digital story about its work.
READ THEIR STORY
Ethnic Communities’ Council of NSW Inc. (ECCNSW)
Men Against Violence (MAV)
ECCNSW trained and supported bilingual Wellbeing Connectors to engage men from Arabic and Punjabi backgrounds through informal gatherings to discuss attitudes to gender roles, family relationships and domestic violence (DV).
ECCNSW’s Wellbeing Connectors conducted 78 informal conversations and spoke to 376 people from Arabic and Punjabi backgrounds.
The focus of the project’s action research was understanding the effectiveness of the Wellbeing Connectors in raising awareness of DV and exploring attitudes towards violence against women in the Arabic and Punjabi communities where this project was conducted.
READ THEIR STORY
Wellsprings for Women
Women’s Health and Safety Project
The Women’s Health and Safety project is designed to work with women from refugee and migrant backgrounds to raise their awareness of the prevention of family and domestic violence.
The project is running educational workshops on respectful relationships, gender equality and the prevention of family violence. The project also provides one-on-one sessions to women who have different complex needs and refers them to the appropriate support agencies.
Wellsprings’ action research focusses on the impact of awareness raising and education workshops about gender equality, respectful relationships and family violence on participants’ understanding of these issues and their behavioural change. The project has also created a digital story about the experiences of refugee and migrant women.
READ THEIR STORY
South West Sydney Legal Centre
Creating Connections in Schools to Empower CALD Communities –
Mothers as Mentors Project
The Mothers as Mentors project aims to educate and empower parents and students from CALD communities to become advocates for the prevention of violence against women and children.
The project has focussed on delivering tailored education and awareness raising workshops to a group of mothers at a local school over five school terms. The workshops covered a range of topics including gender equality, respectful relationships, the legal options and services available for women affected by domestic and family violence in Australia and leadership skills.
The project’s action research explored whether awareness raising through educational activities about gender equality and respectful behaviours in a school setting empowered women to support other women in their communities who were affected by domestic and family violence. Their action research activities have also included the creation ofa digital story capturing the women’s journey with the Mothers as Mentors project.
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Centre for Holistic Health (CHH)
Family in Harmony:
Facilitating responsible and non-stigmatizing attitudes and practices toward domestic violence in the Chinese community
The Family in Harmony project takes a culturally appropriate approach, which integrates prevention, early intervention and community capacity building, to raise community awareness, reduce cultural stigma, encourage help-seeking and facilitate families’ discussion and reflection on beliefs and expectations about gender.
The project undertakes community seminars, family violence training for faith groups, respectful relationships workshops for families and cultural awareness training for practitioners.
The project’s action research evaluates the effectiveness of community awareness activities to increase participants’ understandings about family violence and reduce the stigma of discussing family violence. The project has also created a digital story about its activities.
READ THEIR STORY
Companion House
A Celebration of Culture and Respect
The aim of A Celebration of Culture and Respect has been to listen to and record the views and observations of young people from refugee backgrounds about gender, relationships, domestic violence and respect.
The project focussed on facilitating workshops and discussion groups with young people from refugee backgrounds and used these discussions to create and deliver messages designed by culturally and linguistically diverse young leaders, which foster respectful relationships and prevent domestic violence, while at the same time celebrating culture and identity.
The key action research questions, which guided the project were: “What do you think about the roles of men and the roles of women, and what are respectful relationships in that context?” A digital story created by young CALD leaders is now also available.
READ THEIR STORY
MIGRANT AND REFUGEE SETTLEMENT SERVICES OF THE ACT (MARSS)
Men’s Outreach Workshops (MOW)
MARSS identified a gap in CALD education programs on domestic and family violence available to men in the ACT.
MARSS held workshops with CALD men to develop their knowledge and awareness to prevent and combat domestic and family violence. MARSS conducted six workshops covering topics, such as respectful relationships, the drivers of domestic and family violence, the role of police and support services for domestic and family violence.
The focus of the project’s action research was on how to increase awareness in the community on preventing and reducing domestic and family violence.
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SydWest Multicultural Services
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Domestic Violence Prevention Project
SydWest’s project aimed to recruit and train a team of Community Ambassadors from the Afghan, Indian and South Sudanese communities to deliver DV messages and facilitate changes in thinking and behaviour amongst members of their respective communities.
The project built community capacity to undertake prevention by training and supporting seven Community Ambassadors from the three communities. They also engaged faith leaders in conversations about their role in preventing family violence.
The project’s action research focussed on the learnings of community ambassadors, effective methods for prevention work in CALD communities and the role of faith leaders in the prevention of violence against women. A digital story featuring the project’s Community Ambassadors is now available.
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Boronia Multicultural Services (NSW)
Let’s take the Lead, Keeping our Women, Children and Community Safe
The Let’s take the Lead project focusses on primary prevention strategies by raising awareness of how gendered roles and responsibilities contribute to domestic and family violence against women and their children. The project included a camp for fathers and their sons and other community workshops.
Action research was used to explore the impact of raising the awareness of: fathers taking on caring responsibilities; parents providing equal opportunities to both boys and girls to reach their full potential and communities promoting respectful and equal relationships between men and women, boys and girls. The project created a digital story with community members.
READ THEIR STORY
SAVE the Children, WA (WA)
Strength2Strength
The Strength2Strength project works with young men and boys from Afghan, Arab and Burundian communities and men from African communities to discuss, confront and reframe attitudes towards manhood, masculinity and violence towards women.
The project ran primary prevention workshops, including through school-based and after-school workshops, which involved sporting activities, excursions and discussions. It also ran focus groups for men, including community leaders.
The Strength2Strength team focussed their action research on whether project participants had made a positive shift in their understandings of and attitudes towards family violence, masculinity and healthy relationships.
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South’s Community Hub (QLD)
Free of violence – Community to all
The South’s project focusses on understanding the attitudes and behaviours that lead to violence in CALD communities and works with leaders from African communities including the Somalian, Ethiopian, Rwandan, Burundian, South Sudanese and Eritrean communities.
The project’s activities have included community conversations, running a Men’s Shed support group, workshops on respectful relationships during Adult Migrant English program classes and cultural competency training and support for service providers.
Action research was used to explore the need for awareness raising activities, the behaviours and gendered expectations that shape the experiences of women within the East African community and the drivers of violence against women.
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PRONIA (VIC)
Let’s make respect a reality
Pronia’s project aims to deliver a multidisciplinary campaign to raise awareness, build capacity & promote messages of respectful relationships and gender inequality.
The project’s activities include educational sessions for early childhood centres and Greek language schools, community education workshops and a media campaign.
Pronia’s action research focussed on understanding the challenges and impacts of delivering primary prevention activities to preschools and Greek language schools.
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WESTERN SYDNEY LOCAL HEALTH DISTRICT – MULTICULTURAL HEALTH SERVICES (NSW)
Rich Cultures Should Have Rich Relationships
The project is a partnership model between Multicultural Health Services Western Sydney Local Health District and the Punjabi (Harman Foundation) and Sudanese (Nuba Mountains group, Spiritual Revaluation Centre) communities.
The action research focussed on what strategies can help to build trust, respect cultural values and promote healthy family relationships in Punjabi and Sudanese communities.
READ THEIR STORYSafer Pathways
for CALD Women
These projects work with culturally and linguistically diverse communities, aiming to create safer pathways for women and their children to access mainstream crisis and support services.
Some people may find parts of this content confronting or distressing.
Recommended support services include: 1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732 Lifeline: 13 11 14
Note: CALD PAR projects have created these stories and their views and content cannot be attributed to ANROWS.
WOMEN’S LEGAL SERVICE SA (SA)
The Ask Maria Project
Ask Maria aims to create safer pathways for refugee and migrant women in regional South Australia seeking support for family violence in a culturally safe manner and provide a digital resource for service providers on best practice for engaging CALD women.
The project has created an interactive phone and website application called Ask Maria for CALD women to use. The application provides information and referral options for women in various languages and in written and audio formats.
The project team focused their research on what areas of law most affect CALD women’s lives in regional SA and their ability to engage with the wider community in a safe way. They also aimed to discover what the limitations are for women being linked with regional services, their retention rates and their reliance on support services.
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Save the Children Victoria (VIC)
Safer Pathways for CALD Women
The aim of the Safer Pathways Project is to build the capacity of existing mainstream and specialist services in delivering a culturally safe, intersectional and focused response to culturally and linguistically diverse women and their children experiencing, or at risk of, domestic and family violence and/or sexual assault.
The project activities have involved working in partnership with family and domestic violence services and mainstream services to identify gaps for CALD clients, organising training for professionals and community members on working with CALD women experiencing family violence and holding workshops with CALD women to increase their awareness of family violence and support services.
The project’s action research focuses on identifying and addressing service and training gaps for specialist and mainstream service providers. Their research also involves engaging with CALD women to gain a deeper understanding of their experiences of family violence and access to services. The project has created a digital story about its partnerships with services.
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Ballarat Community Health (VIC)
Safer Pathways for Refugee and Immigrant Women who are Experiencing Family Violence (Ballarat and Wimmera)
Ballarat Community Health’s project aims to address some of the barriers that women from refugee and immigrant backgrounds in regional and rural Victoria experience that prevent their full uptake and use of family violence services.
Ballarat Community Health mapped the knowledge of the family violence service system among community members and service providers, produced resources to address knowledge gaps, held workshops to build the capacity of service staff, held community workshops to provide information and ran a parenting program.
Their action research focussed on improving communities’ knowledge of family violence and relevant services and improving service providers’ capacity to provide a culturally safe response. The project also created a digital story about its work.
READ THEIR STORY Townsville Multicultural Support Group (QLD)
Safer Pathways for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Women Program
Through training and working with bilingual Community Human Rights Trainers, the project aims to provide education to people from CALD backgrounds on human rights, women’s rights and children’s rights.
The project team have delivered a training program, service provider capacity-building and community forums, among other activities.
Using an action research methodology, the program is exploring how understandings of human rights influence women’s safety and settlement in Australia. The project is gathering client perspectives, identifying ways to improve service access, documenting the extent of family violence in the communities and increasing the understanding of women’s experiences of help-seeking. The project team also created a digital story about their work.
READ THEIR STORY The Neighbourhood Hub (QLD)
The CALD Women’s Club
The CALD Women’s Club (the Club) is a free weekly social group for the culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women of Mackay. The Club aims to build and promote social connectedness for CALD women and provide a soft entry to Mackay Women’s Services.
The action research aspect of the CALD Women’s Club has worked to identify and explore ways to better assist CALD women to access support and meet their needs, especially when they are new to Mackay and face barriers to settling in, reaching their potential and being safe and respected. The project has also created a digital story about its work.
READ THEIR STORY Welcoming Intercultural Neighbours Inc. (QLD)
Safer Pathways for CALD Women: Capricornia Families are Everyone’s Business
The aim of the Safer Pathways for CALD Women: Capricornia Families are Everyone’s Business project was to maximise opportunities for CALD women in Rockhampton to receive educational information and resources about domestic and family violence.
The project has established a women’s group for local women to meet and for them to have a direct link into services. The project also engages leaders and men within local CALD communities to support awareness of domestic and family violence and promote the importance of having healthy relationships.
Welcoming Intercultural Neighbours used an action research approach to improve the delivery of information and resources and to identify the key relationships required to best address the needs, challenges and barriers of CALD families in Rockhampton when accessing domestic and family violence services.
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MULTICULTURAL CENTRE FOR WOMEN’S HEALTH (VIC)
Making the Links: Building Safer Pathways for Migrant and Refugee Women in Regional Victoria
The Making the Links – Building Safer Pathways for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Women in Regional Victoria project is an innovative and collaborative project that helps CALD women living in regional Victoria to access mainstream family and domestic violence and sexual assault services.
The Project identifies and reduces barriers to accessing support services for CALD women living in regional locations. The project works with existing service providers to identify and test lasting ways to work together with other services, community organisations and government agencies to ensure that CALD women experiencing violence access the support that they need.
These resources are tailored for CALD women and service providers who work with them, across five Victorian Local Government Areas: Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong, Mildura and Swan Hill.
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