Page 2253 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2016

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contribution to our city’s harmonious way of life. This means encouraging our community to be responsible and active citizens who value our system of government and work towards a shared vision of civil life regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality or age.

The ACT government has demonstrated our commitment to these principles through the implementation of the multicultural framework for 2015-20. The framework promotes equality of opportunity and maintains social cohesion, builds social capital, and minimises social exclusion for culturally and linguistically diverse Canberrans.

There are a number of places in the ACT that are used by multicultural community groups in Canberra. Mrs Jones has referred to a few of those. They include the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre, which for the past 10 years has been of great use to the growing multicultural community. The centre serves as a venue for multicultural peak bodies and cultural groups that support their respective members throughout the year. The centre is home to Muslim prayers on Fridays, a Chinese seniors group, a Tongan language group, an Italian choir, English language classes, a multicultural youth group and a range of other activities that benefit over 120,000 participants and visitors each year.

The ACT government is currently looking at ways school halls and gymnasiums around Canberra can be better utilised for community use when not needed by schools on weekends and after hours. We are also looking at existing grants programs which provide funding for community groups to gain easier access to suitable venues for their activities around Canberra.

The ACT government is committed to continuing to implement accessible and transparent systems which allow all members of the community, including culturally and linguistically diverse groups, to access land, facilities, services and support in building an inclusive and supportive environment for all Canberrans. We do this in a number of ways, but especially through our city’s Human Rights Act 2004, which, for all Canberrans, ensures freedom of movement, expression, association, belief and the ability to take part in public life.

In practical terms, for members of our culturally and linguistically diverse communities, this is visible through access to facilities such as the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre in Civic and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Centre at Yarramundi Reach on the lake; facilitation of events such as the annual National Multicultural Festival, the Ramadan Eid celebrations and the Diwali observance; support for the delivery of programs which enrich and encourage the retention of diverse languages as well as systems to ensure non-English speaking Canberrans can access government and community services as easily as English speaking Canberrans; funding to help build capacity through a range of grants programs geared at community building; and the declaration of the ACT as a refugee welcome zone in 2015.

These initiatives represent only some of what is currently taking place with respect to meeting the needs of our culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Canberra. The ACT government is presently undertaking a consultation process to find out what


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