Fostering Social Cohesion: Intercultural Strategies for Strengthening Australian Multiculturalism

Co-hosted with Swinburne University and iGen Foundation, this webinar will explore the role of intercultural strategies in fostering social cohesion and inclusion in Australia.

Australia was one of the first countries, along with Canada, to adopt multiculturalism. Over four decades later, as threats to our social cohesion grow, local, state, and federal governments are exploring how intercultural strategies can strengthen our multicultural policy framework.

Please join us to hear from our distinguished panel of speakers about their work in this field.

Panel

Mr. Hass Dellal, Panel Chair for the Commonwealth’s Multicultural Framework Review, will discuss the role of intercultural strategies in the recently released Multicultural Framework Review.

Ms. Vesna Haracic Manager, Community Diversity & Inclusion, City of Salisbury, South Australia, will discuss the groundbreaking application of intercultural strategies in the City of Salisbury, Adelaide.

The panel will be chaired by Dr. Glenda Ballantyne, Senior Lecturer, Swinburne, and Co-convenor, Intercultural Cities Australian National Network.

Bios

Dr Bulent (Hass) Dellal AO is the Executive Director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, Chair of the Australian Multicultural Council, the former Chair of SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) and appointed Panel Chair for the Commonwealth’s Multicultural Framework Review, May 2023. He has over 30 years of experience in multicultural affairs and serves on a number of committees and boards.

Ms Vesna Haracic MBA is Manager, Community Diversity & Inclusion, City of Salisbury, South Australia and a board member of Multicultural Aged Care. She has a background working with disadvantaged people and in her current role manages Age friendly Salisbury Strategy, the Abilities and Inclusion Strategic Plan, Intercultural Strategy, the Commonwealth Home Support Programs, Access and Inclusion, and NDIS programs. Committed to ensuring that older people are central to decision that impact their lives, she has driven the Council’s pursuit of equity of access for older people with a particular focus on residents from diverse cultural communities.

Dr Glenda Ballantyne is a Senior Lecturer of Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Swinburne University and Co-Convenor of the Intercultural Cities Australian National Network. She researches in the areas of racism, migration, multiculturalism and interculturalism. She is currently leading the Intercultural Cities in Australia project, the International Intercultural Cities Comparative Study, an international research project examining interculturalism in Australia, Canada and Spain supported by the Council of Europe, and Zooming In: Multiculturalism through the lens of the next generation, supported by the Victorian Multicultural Commission.