Convention
Registrations have now closed for the Triennial Convention in Adelaide in September. Congratulations to Wendy Gower of Victoria who won the Early Bird Prize of accommodation at the Grand Chancellor Adelaide on Hindley. We look forward to catching up with 90 members and partners for our new look “Long Weekend” Convention.
If anyone has queries about the Convention, please contact Paula Murphy, the CEO.
SA Region’s “Empowering Women” Initiative
Left to right: Mr Con Maros (Underdale High School), students Sameega Moseki and Adellaide Jongwe, Eveline Fombason, Joseph Fombason (Chairperson, Cameroon Community Association) and Christine Jamieson (The Penguin Club). Photo: Julie Toyama DFC.
The Hon Grace Portolesi, SA Minister for Multicultural Affairs, officially launched the South Australian Region’s initiative “Empowering Women”. This program, funded by a Community Benefit Grant SA, is designed to prepare and present a series of workshops on Communications Skills for women from new and emerging communities of a refugee background.
The eloquent guest speaker at the launch of the program on Thursday 6th May at Ayers House was Mwajemi Hussein, a member of two Penguin Club groups. Mwajemi is a Congolese Refugee who has been in Australia for 5 years. She is passionate about developing her skills to benefit the women in her community. She has taken every opportunity to pursue her education and to enhance her English Language skills and is becoming a widely known public speaker on the plight of refugees in Africa.
Nearly 80 people attended the program launch, including representatives of various migrant community associations, government organisations, the Migrant Resource Centre South Australia, Multicultural Youth SA, representatives of TAFE and various schools. Mr Joseph Fombason, Chairperson of the Cameroon Community Association, and his wife Eveline attended the event as well as members of the African Women’s Federation and the Australian Refugee Association.
The Community Benefit Grant SA has been given to The Penguin Club to present 36 hours of workshops to 48 migrant women. The first of these was held on 8th May 2010 at the Fullarton Park Centre and was attended by 17 students from various countries including Congo, Cameroon, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Germany and Italy. Two of Mwajemi’s daughters were there, determined to follow in the footsteps of their inspirational mother.
Three other workshops have been held since then and a few men have attended as well. The most recent was held in the MRC Murray lands Centre at Murray Bridge for women from the Philippines and Bhutan.
The next workshop will be held on 7th July at the Northern Area Migrant Resource Centre and a full day workshop will be held in Murray Bridge in late September. Keep checking this website for future events and contact Chris Jamieson, the South Australian Executive Officer, for further details.
