Partnered projects
VicHealth supports a range of social connection, arts and new media projects with a variety of partners.
Heartlands Refugee Art Prize
AMES
The 2011 Heartlands Refugee Art Prize celebrates the contribution of refugees who have arrived in Australia since 1970. This unique art prize showcases the creative talent and social contribution of visual artists from a refugee background.
Heartlands focuses on the aspirations, hopes and dreams that refugees bring with them to Australia. These are reflected in the painting, drawing, photography and mixed media submitted for the prize.
Heartlands aims to promote the skills, talents and creativity that newly arrived refugees contribute to Australia. Evidence suggests that this type of recognition is important to refugee settlement experiences, their self esteem and mental health and wellbeing.
Australian School of Performing Arts and Adult Migrant Education Service
This project uses the performing arts as the vehicle for engaging refugee and new-arrival communities to help them build English language skills, and increase self esteem, confidence and artistic expression. VicHealth is partnering with the Adult Migrant Education Service, the Australian School of Performing Arts and the Australian Girls Choir to provide opportunities for social engagement and professional training.
Schools as Core Social Centres
Catholic Education Office of Melbourne
The Schools as Core Social Centres program helps schools, families and communities build partnerships for better health and wellbeing outcomes. Federal and State policies acknowledge the benefits of creating links between schools and a range of organisations, and engaging parents meaningfully. Anecdotal evidence suggests that students’ literacy, numeracy and wellbeing are improving as the result of this program.
VicHealth has supported the Catholic Education Office of Melbourne to build the Schools as Core Social Centres pilot program, and is part of a working group developing a Charter for promoting school community partnerships.
Choir of Hope and Inspiration
The Choir of Hope and Inspiration
The Choir, through its many performances, has become the unofficial face of those who are homeless and/or disadvantaged. It has helped to create positive attitudes and understanding of homelessness amongst the general public and policy makers, while helping to mitigate the social exclusion felt by its participants.
Back to top
Gift of Light
Federation Square
The Gift of Light Community Festival forms part of The Light in Winter at Federation Square. Gift of Light considers the significance of light to various communities. It brings together ceremony, traditional celebrations, contemporary artists, ritual, dance, philosophy and enlightenment.
The festival provides opportunities for diverse communities – from Indigenous, Turkish or Iranian communities to the deaf community – to work in partnership to enrich inter-community bonds.
In 2011, Vicki Couzens’ fire pit will be a central focus for Indigenous practitioners to share their culture with Melbourne. The theme of fire will be used to bring communities together in a public ritual, ‘Burning the Darkness’, based on the symbolic burning of past pain, war and collective and personal darkness, creating the opportunity of moving forward as one community.
Fitzroy/Collingwood Parkies DVD History Project
Fitzroy/Collingwood Parkies DVD Steering Committee
, Youth Support and Advocacy Service
This project will collate interviews, film footage and historical resources about the Aboriginal group known as the Fitzroy/Collingwood Parkies group into a documentary. This public and private history will be made available to the Fitzroy/Collingwood Parkies community first, before it is made available to the general public. The project aims to produce curriculum resources for school students to accompany the documentary.
This community-led project will see that the documentaries and educational resources capture the significance of social connection, place and storytelling between generations. The aim is to enhance the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of Aboriginal people in an urban setting. The project is a partnership between the Community of Aboriginal Elders who are related to the Fitzroy/Collingwood Parkies, the Youth Support Advocacy Service, Misen Media and VicHealth.
Emerge Cultural Hubs
Multicultural Arts Victoria
The Emerge Cultural Hubs project provides cultural mentoring and arts development in Victoria. Multicultural Arts Victoria is developing a range of areas as cultural hubs: Ballarat, Shepparton, Warrnambool, Castlemaine, Brimbank and Dandenong.
Emerge Cultural Hubs were developed in response to consultations with emerging and refugee communities that have identified the need for increased participation and opportunities in the arts.
The project links emerging artists and communities with established professional artists, skilled facilitators and each other. It aims to establish long-term support structures and partnerships which will provide networking and job opportunities for emerging artists and communities.
Back to top
Cultural Strengthening and Exchange through Art program
Songlines Aboriginal Music Corporation
The Cultural Strengthening and Exchange Through Art program focuses on providing Indigenous youth with opportunities and pathways to participate in music making as well as cultural exchange with the broader community.
Involving young people in creative activity such as music programs can improve academic achievement, school retention rates and self-esteem. It can also help reduce drug and alcohol consumption and juvenile offending.
The Reading Program
The State Library of Victoria
The Reading Program is a community-based project run through neighbourhood houses and public libraries. The program utilises read-aloud reading groups to engage participants. It focuses on engaging with literature through group activities to promote literacy and improve mental health and wellbeing, particularly for those who are most vulnerable and isolated.
Theatre for Change
Victorian College of the Arts and Music
The Theatre for Change project aims to increase opportunities for young people from Horn of Africa communities in Dandenong, Brimbank and Warrnambool to connect with one another, as well as the broader community, to increase social participation.
Theatre for Change explores issues of identity, settlement and intercultural tension through theatre and storytelling. Participants engage in theatre workshops to discuss issues within their families and communities. The process culminates in public performance that presents their experiences as a series of narratives that provide social dialogue.