Advance Diversity Services (ADS) celebrated its 40th anniversary with speeches, awards, Nepalese dancing and branded cupcakes at its AGM held in its Hurstville office on December 9.
Mark Coure MP, Member for Oatley, spoke about ADS’s outstanding work in the community and presented a 40-year Service Award to Branislav Musovski. Khalil Haragli, also a recipient of the 40-year Service Award, was unable to attend the ceremony.
Mark Coure presenting the 40-year Service Award to Branislav Musovski.
Rodney Thompson (representing David Coleman MP) presented the Banks Volunteer of the Year Award to Martyn Perry, ADS Learn to Drive Mentor volunteer.
Rodney Thompson (representing David Coleman MP) presenting the Banks Volunteer of the Year Award to Martyn Perry, ADS Learn to Drive Mentor volunteer.
Anna Veneris, Group Facilitator, and Rosaline Havea, Board of Directors, received appreciation for 20 years of service and Mushrat Mishu, Finance Officer, and Vera Trajkovska, Community Care Worker, received their 10-year Service Award.
Mushrat Mishu, Finance Officer, being presented with her 10-year Service Award.
ADS CEO Antoinette Chow thanked board members who had completed their service and once again welcomed Chura Belbase, Marites Bairstow, Dr Rifaat Hanna, Rosaline Havea and Ruth Fyfe to their roles on the board.
She also praised Shreya Gyawali, the Nepalese dancer who performed at the AGM, and who happily serves a volunteer at ADS’s Nepalese cultural dance class.
Chairperson Ruth Fyfe said that while celebrations had been disrupted by the pandemic, the 40th Anniversary was still a milestone event for ADS.
‘In 1981, from a simple beginning as St George Migrant Resource Centre, ADS has achieved 40 years of proud service to the community,’ she said. ‘And it is still a values-driven organisation.
‘ADS has grown to include offices at Hurstville, Rockdale, Bexley and Sutherland from where Services are provided to South Eastern Sydney including Bayside, Georges River and Sutherland Shire local government areas.
‘It continues to provide high-quality services to the community by having an active commitment to social justice, compassion, inclusion, empowerment, integrity and collaboration.’
Astrid Perry, AGM Returning Officer.
Ms Fyfe said ADS was fortunate to have highly skilled staff with extensive knowledge of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
‘Staff and volunteers speak over thirty community languages, she said, ‘and ADS continues to thrive in a constantly changing environment.’
Ms Chow said ADS has had a rich history and continues to build on a firm foundation established over decades.
Highlights from the last five years she noted, included, expanding the Settlement Services Program; running anti-racism workshops and domestic and family violence prevention initiatives; offering affordable driving lessons by trained volunteers to people from disadvantaged groups; adapting aged care programs to meet Australia’s aged care reforms; registration as a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provider; and winning several awards for our work in fostering diversity with a specific focus on the CALD LGBTQIA+ community, which includes launching our marketing campaign ‘Be YOU WITH US – You belong, We All belong’ and introducing ADS Diversity Champions.
That ADS had been able to purchase and move into its own premises in Hurstville CBD in 2019 was another high point she added.
‘Through our Strategic Plan 2021-2024, we will continue to enact our values of inclusion, collaboration, empowerment, compassion and integrity while focusing on the three strategic pillars: strengthening our industry leadership and partnerships; operating with excellence; and diversifying our services,’ she said.
‘Thank you all for supporting ADS over the last 40 years and I look forward to continuing to work together to build a strong ADS that is well-equipped to face the future.’
Advance Diversity Services collaborated to bring Water Safety Week online this November-December to help save lives this summer.
‘Life saving organisations say there has been a 20 per cent spike in drowning deaths around Australia in the past year, with the impact of the pandemic partly to blame,’ said Jenny Tang, ADS’s representative on the South East Sydney Multicultural Water Safety Committee.
‘We also know that people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in Australia are at greater risk of drowning due to differences in the way they see water recreation and unfamiliarity with the dangers of Australian waterways. Many new arrivals also have low or no swimming ability.
‘The free sessions in Water Safety Week have been open to everyone – but we’ve been particularly keen for migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and international students to tune in to ensure they can safely enjoy pools, beaches, rivers and lakes with their family and friends.’
Free Water Safety Week workshops help people from multicultural communities learn how to keep themselves and their families safe so they can enjoy pools, beaches and rivers this summer.
In 2021, Water Safety Week ran from November 29 to December 3. It gave participants the chance to hear from experts about rock fishing and fishing safety, spotting danger and hazards at the beach, staying safe in swimming pools, rivers and lakes and doing CPR and First Aid.
The committee hopes these educational sessions will help drive down critical incidents and disturbing statistics, which include a 20 per cent jump in drowning deaths, an increase of 150 per cent in rescue-related incidents, and the rise by more than half of drowning in inland rivers and waterways.
The South East Sydney Multicultural Water Safety Committee is comprised of water safety education organisations, local councils, education providers, and local community service providers.
‘We recognise that during the Greater Sydney lockdown water skills will have declined and swimming lessons been abandoned due to pool closures and fear of contracting COVID-19,’ Ms Tang said.
‘But we also know that post-lockdown, as the weather gets warmer, people will flock to beaches, rivers and pools.
‘Our free sessions are one way we’re helping people to stay safe in these environments. Two others are: the Water Safety Directory Website we launched last year, which offers a wealth of water safety resources that can be filtered by language, location, and type; and the information sessions we’re running for people to become bilingual water safety volunteers.’
Surf Life Saving also has a new community hub, which has resources available in 21 languages: https://beachsafetyhub.org.au/
Water Safety Week is a collaboration between: Advance Diversity Services, Department of Primary Industries, Gymea Community Aid and Information Service, Randwick City Council, Recreational Fishing Alliance of NSW, Royal Life Saving New South Wales, Surf Life Saving New South Wales, Sutherland Shire Council, Maritime NSW and Waverley Council.
The South East Sydney Multicultural Water Safety Committee includes representatives from Surf Life Saving NSW, Royal Life Saving NSW, Randwick City, Waverley, Bayside, Georges River, Sutherland Shire Councils, ADS, Asian Women at Work Inc, Gymea Community Aid and Information Service, Kogarah Community Services and TAFE NSW.
Advance Diversity Services (ADS) has been chosen as an HWEI Gold Tier provider for the second year running in the Australian LGBTQ Inclusion Awards announced on May 28.
The inclusion awards celebrate Australia’s top organisations for LGBTQ inclusion based on the results of the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) and Australian Health + Wellbeing Equality Index (HWEI). They also acknowledge leaders, individuals and networks that have made a significant impact on LGBTQ inclusion within their workplaces.
Chief Executive Officer, Antoinette Chow, said it was an honour to receive the award two years in a row – an acknowledgment which paid tribute to ADS’ sustained work in fostering and celebrating LGBTQ inclusion.
‘Happily, it means our inclusion campaign ‘BE YOU WITH US – You belong, we all belong’ is now fully embedded and that we’re steadily improving access and equity for people who identify with a diverse gender and/or sexuality.
‘As we grow further as an inclusive organisation, we hope to be a lighthouse to other CALD providers.’
Initiatives taken since ADS received the Gold award in 2020 have included:
Partnering with Queer Screen to host a community screening of the Australian premiere of Goodbye Mother (a Vietnamese coming out story) on February 24 as part of the 28th Mardi Gras Film Festival.
Producing and launching Pride in My Faith – a video which offers insights into the struggles faced by LGBTIQA+ people of faith from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds as they try to reconcile their faith, culture and queer identity, and to find service providers that understand the complexity of their predicament.
Launching a research project with the University of Wollongong (UOW) to understand gaps in the knowledge and skills of diversity service workers when servicing culturally diverse LGBTIQ+ communities in the context of COVID-19 with the ultimate aim of improving service provision.
Additionally, Ms Chow said, ADS’ Champions program supports ADS LGBTIQA+ staff and client-based service delivery, and its LGBTIQA+ Working Group, assists ADS to improve access and equity.
‘The important thing here is to ensure people from CALD LGBTIQ+ communities receive the services they need and feel welcome and included. We know from our research that these people often struggle, and sometimes it’s so severe that their lives are at stake, so it’s not enough to give these matters lip service.
‘So please, if you are a migrant or refugee who identifies as LGBTIQA+ and you need support, contact ADS or look for services in our expanded Multicultural LGBTIQA+ Support Directory.
Ms Chow commended the Network of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies (NADA), the peak organisation for non-government alcohol and other drugs services in NSW who also received a Gold Tier provider award in 2021.
‘We’re in good company receiving gold,’ she said, ‘and inspired by the efforts of other non-profits like NADA who are making a difference.’
ADS is a proud member of ACON’s Pride in Health + Wellbeing, a national program that provides support, training and guidance in LGBTI inclusive service delivery. It also administers the HWEI as part of Pride Inclusion Programs, a suite of social inclusion initiatives run by Australia’s leading LGBTI health organisation, ACON.
Launched in 2019, the HWEI is a benchmarking tool which provides health and wellbeing organisations the opportunity to assess, measure and improve their practices to better include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTIQ) people in their services.
The information gleaned from organisations allows the HWEI to benchmark LGBT inclusive service delivery identify, map any gaps that exist, and allow for continuous quality improvements to be made. The knowledge gained from the HWEI will result in better experiences of LGBTIQ people when accessing health and human services across Australia.
Caption: ADS CEO Antoinette Chow and Senior Manager, Aged and Disability Services, Dimi Vourliotis at the Australian LGBTQ Inclusion Awards ceremony on May 28 where ADS was chosen HWEI Gold Tier provider for the second year running.
Advance Diversity Services has played a pivotal role in producing six easy-to-read, pocket-sized brochures about coercive control released in May to coincide with Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month.
The launch of the brochures in six languages – English, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Nepali, Thai, and Bengali – also coincided with Jess Hill’s See what you made me do, a three-part series exploring the scourge of domestic violence in Australia, which premiered on SBS, NITV and SBS On Demand.
ADS Team Leader, Emerging Communities, Settlement and Community Services, Magdaline Shenton-Kaleido is a member of the St George Domestic Violence (DV) Committee and served on the committee’s sub-working group to develop the brochures. She said: ‘Coercive control is an overwhelmingly common experience in abusive relationships, and has been found to be a significant factor in most deaths resulting from domestic violence. ‘Yet most people in the community don’t know about coercive control or don’t understand how it might manifest.
‘The St George DV Committee wanted to help people to understand how you can still be in an unhealthy or abusive relationship even where there is no physical violence. And that’s why we produced the brochures – in English and five community languages.’ Ms Shenton-Kaleido said ADS’s bicultural officers proofread and amended translations from the English version of the brochure before printing, which was a tremendous help with the project. She also pointed out that the brochures provide a healthy relationship checklist as well as information about support services available in the St George region.
The checklist asks if there is someone in your life who:
Makes you feel afraid?
Controls what you do and say?
Puts you down or embarrasses you?
Accuses you of flirting and cheating?
Pressures or forces you to do sexual things?
Threatens to hurt you, themselves, friends and family?
Constantly checks your phone?
Limits your access to money?
‘Any of these actions may be signs of coercive control or abuse,’ Ms Shenton-Kaleido said. ‘Coercive control is an abusive behaviour used to cause fear and/or control a person or situation. ‘This type of domestic violence is known as domestic abuse and can go undetected in intimate partner relationships for years.’
If not recognised, controlling behaviours like gaslighting, stalking and technological abuse can escalate to physical, life-threatening violence, Ms Shenton-Kaleido said, so people should seek advice and support even if they’re unsure this is what they’re experiencing. ‘Our aim in launching A Pocket Guide to Relationships, Domestic Abuse and Coercive Control is to help people find the support they need before the violence escalates and to show that support is available in the community to help them build healthier relationships.’
See what you made me do is on SBS On Demand until May 2022.
If you are worried about domestic violence, call the 24 hour Domestic Violence Hotline on: 1800 656 463. Always call the Police on 000 if you are in danger. For more information on Domestic Violence please visit: https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/domestic-violence
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Caption: Magdaline Shenton-Kaleido and other ADS staff were pivotal in helping to produce six easy-to-read, pocket-sized brochures about coercive control released in May.
One hundred and fifteen people attended the Australian premiere of Goodbye Mother on February 24 – a community screening Advance Diversity Services held with Queer Screen as part of the 28th Mardi Gras Film Festival (MGFF21).
‘It was a good roll-up’ said ADS CEO Antoinette Chow. ‘And the film, which tells the tender coming out story of Van (Lanh Thanh), was a soft entry point through which to raise awareness in the CALD community about LGBTIQA+ issues.’
The subsidised screening of Goodbye Mother (directed by Trịnh Đình Lê Minh) at Event Cinema Hurstville was in Vietnamese with English subtitles. The film won the Reeling Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival 2020 Best Narrative Feature Filmand also the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival 2020 Audience Award.
A short version of ADS’s video Pride in My Faith, which offers candid testimony from three CALD LGBTIQA+ people of faith about how they bring their sexual diversity, faith and culture together, was shown prior to the feature.
Antoinette Chow and Cheryl Kavanagh Co-Chair of Queer Screen also spoke on the night –emphasising the benefits and success of the ADS-Queer Screen partnership.
‘We’re proud to have partnered with Queer Screen to encourage people in our communities to connect with narratives that will support them if they’re coming out and enhance their understanding if they’re unsure about the issues faced by LGBTIQ+ people,’ Ms Chow said.
‘What the film shows us, and what we know further from research, is that coming out can be painful, traumatic and even life threatening.
‘Our goal, therefore, must always be to bring the kind of change that creates more inclusive and supportive CALD families and communities and ensures people can express themselves freely and authentically without fear of rejection, hostility or persecution.’
Ms Chow thanked ADS, Queer Screen and Event Cinema Hurstville staff for their efforts in hosting and promoting the event and also recommended MGFF21’s online and on-demand screenings of other LGBTIQA+ films, which she said represented the best of international cinema.
Caption: ADS staff (from left) Salvin Kumar, Antoinette Chow, Magdaline Shenton-Kaleido, Anthony Scerri and Paul Kennedy from Queer Screen at the Australian launch of Goodbye Mother on February 24.
