African-Australian Community Workshops

Relationships Australia Victoria (RAV) celebrates cultural diversity and is committed to strengthening families and supporting people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to have positive, safe and respectful relationships.

We’re proud to work collaboratively with a broad range of community organisations in response to community needs, including by tailoring services to meet the needs of the client groups with which we work.

We recently partnered with the Victoria Police African Australian Community Taskforce to deliver a series of workshops to African Australian community leaders about family violence prevention. This community-led taskforce arose out of meetings between community leaders and the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police during which family violence education was identified as key to addressing family breakdown in the community and its subsequent impact on young people’s lives.

Leaders who participated in the workshops were supported to learn about the complex cultural and systemic factors which can affect family conflict and violence, including inter-generational trauma, shifting gender and family roles and expectations, migration and resettlement, and the loss of traditional cultural knowledge, language and practices. Participants also received information about healthy couple and family relationships and approaches to family violence prevention and reparation.

At a follow up workshop, representatives from Victoria Police, Child Protection, Legal Aid and RAV provided information and engaged in conversations about how services can work collaboratively with communities to overcome challenges in a culturally sensitive manner.

The men participated actively in the workshops and expressed their hopes of returning to their communities with strategies to facilitate engagement and community action to prevent family violence.