City celebrate Cultural Diversity Week

THE City of Greater Geelong has officially wrapped up their Cultural Diversity Week, a celebration of the talents, influences and stories of Victoria’s rich multicultural communities.

Throughout the past week, the Greater Geelong community were invited to acknowledge and celebrate the history and bright future of Victoria’s multiculturalism, including the existing 17.7 per cent of Geelong’s population who now call the area home.

The 2023 theme for the campaign was: Our Past. Our Future: Celebrating and reflecting on the contributions of Victoria’s multicultural communities.

Greater Geelong Mayor Trent Sullivan spoke of the importance of recognising and marking such a significant week.

“The City of Greater Geelong supports various events celebrating our cultural diversity, including the recent Pako Festa, Victoria’s largest free celebration of cultural diversity,” Mayor Sullivan said.

“We’re enormously proud of our multicultural communities and as a City we strive to create inclusion, respect and a sense of belonging no matter where a person was born or raised.”

Throughout the week, locals were invited to go online and view a range of portraits of community members dressed in the traditional dress of their home countries.

Cultures that were represented in the online portraits included Wadawurrung Traditional Owners, Croatian, Dutch, Hazara, Karenni, Punjabi and many more.

To culminate Cultural Diversity Week, residents were also encouraged to call out any form of racial discrimination on International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on Tuesday (March 21).

Cr Jim Mason, Chair of the Multicultural Affairs portfolio said that marking Cultural Diversity Week is another way of breaking down the barriers often faced by people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

“The City’s residents celebrate the enormous diversity that exists within our community, and this is another way in which we can pay our respect to all cultures that make Greater Geelong a colourful and vibrant place to be,” Cr Mason said.

“In addition, Geelong has been recognised as a ‘Refugee Welcome Zone’ since 2002 and welcomes hundreds of refugees every year as one of the primary settlement areas in Victoria for humanitarian migrants.”

For more information about the City’s Cultural Diversity celebrations, head to www.geelongaustralia.com.au/culturaldiversity/default.aspx