Strategy, Policies and Campaigns
Multicultural Action Plan
Greater Shepparton City Council's Multicultural Action Plan helps Council continue to support its vibrant, cohesive community as well as strengthen partnerships with communities, service providers and other stakeholders.
The Multicultural Action Plan has been developed after intensive community consultation. Community events and broader consultations were used to connect with and discuss the future of multiculturalism in Greater Shepparton. Council used a variety of consultation methods to ensure a diverse range of community and organisations were consulted and part of the planning process.
The development of the Action Plan is designed to build on the work already undertaken and to strengthen partnerships between Council and the region's multicultural communities, service providers and other cultural stakeholders. The Strategy is inclusive of the entire community with a special focus on multicultural communities.
The Action Plan aligns with the Municipal Association of Victoria’s (MAV) Statement of Commitment to Cultural Diversity that aims to promote and facilitate good multicultural practice and leadership within and across Victorian local government. MAV's vision is for a strong local government sector that provides leadership in the way cultural diversity is recognised, nurtured, respected and valued. This is embed in the measures of the action plan.
The Multicultural Action Plan is available for download below:
Racism. It Stops With Me.
'Racism. It Stops With Me.' is a campaign by the Australian Human Rights Commission national campaign which invites all Australians to reflect on what they can do to counter racism wherever it happens.
Greater Shepparton City Council is pleased to be a key signatory partner with the campaign.
This national anti-discrimination campaign aligns with Greater Shepparton City Council’s cultural diversity initiatives through the Cultural Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan and Council’s Aboriginal six point Partnership Plan.
Refugee Welcome Zone
Greater Shepparton has a strong and significant history of welcoming refuges into this community and in March 2014 the Greater Shepparton City Council signed the declaration to be a Refugee Welcome Zone. A Refugee Welcome Zone is a Local Government Area which has made a commitment in spirit to welcoming refugees into the community, upholding the human rights of refugees, demonstrating compassion for refugees and enhancing cultural and religious diversity in the community.
This initiative began in 2002 to recognise Australia being home to over 800,000 refugees since the Second World War. This Refugee Council of Australia sees the public commitment from Council’s to acknowledgment the relationships they have with refugee communities and the tremendous contributions refugees have made to Australian society in the fields of medicine, science, engineering, sport, education and the arts.
RECOGNISE
The RECOGNISE campaign, facilitated by Recognition Australia, supports the people’s movement for Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (ATSI). Australia’s Constitution was written more than a century ago. At which point, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had lived in this land for more than 40,000 years, keeping alive the world’s oldest continuous culture. However Australia’s founding document did not recognise this first chapter of our national story. Greater Shepparton has one of the largest Indigenous populations outside metropolitan Melbourne which is reported to be home to more than 2000, however anecdotally the number is believed to be much higher than this.