By CASEY NEILL
NEW arrivals gained a taste of Greater Dandenong’s diversity and formed community connections through tours to places of worship.
Greater Dandenong Interfaith Network development officer Helen Heath said the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship (OMAC) and Greater Dandenong Council funded four bus trips.
The network regularly runs similar tours for the general public with outings scheduled for Wednesdays 8 June, 10 August, 12 October and 14 December.
“One of the initial aims of the interfaith tours program was to train asylum seekers or refugees as volunteer tour guides, providing an opportunity to be positively engaged in social activities while learning about different faiths and in turn teaching others about their own,” she said.
“However, this proved a challenging task in just encouraging participants to join these tours.
“So the focus shifted to conducting tours and trying to encourage diverse groups of participants to join in.”
Part of the funding included filmmaker Richard Leigh attending the tours to share stories from the places visited and from participants.
“The aim of the film primarily is to educate the community about the challenge of being a new arrival, particularly as an asylum seeker or refugee in the local Dandenong area, and for participants to feel free and able to tell their stories,” Ms Heath said.
On the first tour on 12 November were eight Burmese women and their three small children, and four Afghan community members.
“The times that people had come to Australia varied from three days to nine years so there was a wide range of experience,” Ms Heath said.
“Everyone seemed to enjoy the time and by the end of the tour had met and engaged with new people – both each other on the bus and the communities that welcomed them – and had learnt something of the different faiths, food and culture of those two communities here in the City of Greater Dandenong.”
The Tamil and Afghan communities were represented on the 5 December tour.
A youth-focused tour on 21 January didn’t attract as many young people as the organisers hoped, Ms Heath said, but about 45 people took part in the final tour on 5 May.
Call Ms Heath on 8774 7662 or email interfaithofficer@interfaithnetwork.org.au to book a tour.
