For the past 60 years, the Brotherhood of St Laurence’s multicultural communities team has been helping refugees and migrants settle in Melbourne.
The team, which is based at Epping’s Community Services Hub, helps migrants and refugees with finding work and connecting with their new community, as well as informing them about playgroup, kindergarten and maternal health services for children.
Senior manager Hutch Hussein said the team, which was formerly known as the Ecumenical Migration Centre (EMC), aimed to link people with services and provide them with the support they need during their early years in Australia.
She said that in recent times, the team had been working with Syrian, Afghani, Iraqi and Iranian communities in Whittlesea and Hume. “We mainly work with people in their first five years [here]. People feel a greater connection if they are working,” she said.
Ms Hussein said the team realised that in recent years, people had began choosing to settle in Whittlesea and Hume instead of the inner city suburbs. To mark the milestone, Ms Hussein and her team compiled a book documenting the Brotherhood of St Laurence’s settlement work over the past 60 years.
Ms Hussein said that she was proud to continue the work started by the EMC in inner Melbourne in 1956.
Download copies of the book: www.bsl.org.au/contact/multicultural-communities-team
