Andrew Leigh

July’s Canberra Community Champion is Multicultural Hub Canberra. Multicultural Hub Canberra provides support to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to access the resources they need to thrive in Canberra and feel connected to their community.

This includes providing local information and life skills sessions as well as support with accommodation, education/schooling, employment, health, welfare, relationships and more.

Multicultural Youth Service participants playing team sports.

Multicultural Hub Canberra has a broad range of free specialist multicultural services across youth, employment support, aged care, settlement and women’s services. 

• The Settlement Service supports new arrivals to quickly feel at home in Canberra and to have access to services and opportunities.
• The Multicultural Women’s Service celebrates the achievements of local multicultural women while supporting women and their families, tailoring the support to suit the needs of each individual woman. It provides a safe space and the critical opportunity for culturally and linguistically diverse women to build a support network within the wider community.
• The Multicultural Youth Service works with young people as well as schools across Canberra supporting the development and goals of young migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. In 2021, I had the privilege of opening a youth space in Gungahlin, known fondly as Gunner’s Place, for Multicultural Hub Canberra, Barnardos and Northside Community Service. They offer social activities, homework support, weekend sports and help getting ‘L’ licence plates.
• The award winning Multicultural Employment Service finds work for the many migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who face language, confidence and discrimination barriers in finding employment.
• The Multicultural Counselling Service is one of the more recent services provided by the Multicultural Hub Canberra and is open to all people from migrant and refugee backgrounds, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, status, or English abilities. It is free, confidential and discreet and provides a safe, respectful and non-judgmental space for people to be heard and supported.

Multicultural Hub also promotes the ACT through its Welcome 2 Canberra program, which is a ‘Go To’ service for assistance, completion of forms, registrations and referrals to other services as well as providing a free downloadable smart-phone APP in multiple languages with links to relevant services and a Welcome 2 Canberra Info Line (1800 512 234) to provide information and answer questions.

Multicultural Hub is focused on directly supporting local communities through sensitive and culturally appropriate services with multilingual staff and interpreters who have personal experience and appreciation of the challenge of settling in a new place.

If you’d like to learn more about Multicultural Hub Canberra’s services or volunteer with them, check out their website here or call 02 6100 4611.