Cultural Diversity Week
As an organisation that supports migrants and refugees settle successfully in Australia, AMES Australia looks very much like the diverse communities we support.
About 70 per cent of our 600 staff members and 40 per cent of our 400 volunteers were born overseas and collectively we speak 56 languages.
Many of our staff are former migrants and refugees, and indeed former clients of AMES, who have walked the resettlement journey.
Cultural Diversity Week gives us pause to reflect on how our own diversity is critical to the success of the work we do.
The photo above, taken randomly at the AMES head office in Little Collins Street last week, shows a group of AMES staff who were born in 16 different countries and between them, speak 21 languages.
Each year AMES Australia directly assists more than 40,000 migrants and refugees to find their places in Australian society and touches the lives of more than 150,000 people. Our organisation’s programs are aimed at fostering a sense of belonging among its clients, recognising that social participation is a key ingredient in maintaining social cohesion.
We use a unique strengths-based approach to successful settlement, which recognises and harnesses the resilience of refugees and migrants and builds of their strengths.
AMES Australia supports newly arrived migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to settle here through orientation programs, English tuition, vocational skills training and employment services.
Under our vision of ‘full participation for all in a cohesive and diverse society’, the organisation supports migrants and refugees to achieve their social and economic goals.
We are also proud of the role we have played over 70 years in helping remodel Australia as a successful multicultural nation and also in supporting the high levels of social cohesion we enjoy.