Dandenong Hub. Photo: Hiba Hammoud
Living in Australia, you find various residents from different cultures and backgrounds. We’re lucky to live in a country where it’s non-discriminatory, everyone is accepted, and treated fairly. Living in Melbourne couldn’t be any better; wherever you walk you’d see different people with their individual personality and opinion. It’s what others would call, culturally diverse.
Statistics show nearly a quarter of Victoria’s population was born overseas, and the city is home to residents from 180 countries, who speak more than 233 languages and follow 116 religious faiths.
Local councils say they’re doing their best to develop their community to make it the most suitable to their residents depending on the demographics in the area. Local councils have realised to promote their community to potential residents they need to change their community in order to make it culturally diverse to suit every resident’s needs.
One such council is the ‘City of Greater Dandenong.’ On their website, that diversity “….means that people who live, work, and visit the city, have different cultural, religious and language backgrounds / and that people naturally differ in age, disability, gender, race, colour, marital and parental status, sexual preference, physical characteristics and political beliefs.”
Local councillor Roz Blades says the area’s diversity means people learn more about each other.
“But it’s not only multiculturalism that’s changed Greater Dandenong, it’s the education that goes along with it, it’s the kids learning at school not only about the normal topics but about people’s food, their habits, their cuisine, their country, their language,” she says.
Greater Dandenong has a population of around 138,000 people. 56% of residents were born overseas from more than 150 different countries. And 51% of the city comes from non-English speaking backgrounds.
Because of the area’s population the council offers culturally appropriate family services. It arranges interpreters for consultations, and provides information in languages other than English. It ensures a diversity of food choices through Meals on Wheels and support groups. And it runs an ‘Interfaith Network’ which meets monthly at the Council offices. Most importantly the Indigenous communities are valued in Greater Dandenong and reconciliation is one of the top priorities.
With councillor Roz Blades
Cr Blades explains that businesses and services in the area show how multiculturalism is experienced day to day.
“In Greater Dandenong we just get up like everybody does in every city anywhere in the world, and do our thing. But our thing would be Afghani restaurants, Dandenong market, Springvale market, the world’s best practice interfaith network. We don’t see ourselves as being different, it’s everybody else that does that – we’re just multicultural,” she says.
The City of Greater Dandenong also educates the community by reflecting the diversity of Greater Dandenong communities both past and present. Its arts and heritage collections contain around 30,000 art works and heritage items. This is all made to preserve and conserve local history, culture and heritage. These collections of art works, educate, encourage discussion about art and heritage, and provide a sense of pride and belonging to all residents in the community.
The combinations of influences that exist in the City of Greater Dandenong make the area an exciting, lively, and fair place to live and work.
