Overview
The Welcoming Futures Leadership Program is an opportunity for young people from diverse backgrounds, including First Nations and CALD, to become effective leaders and change-makers. Across 12 months, our young leaders develop practical skills through training, workshops, projects and events that will equip them to be the future leaders of a diverse and socially cohesive South Australia.
Welcoming Futures invests in the future of an intercultural South Australia by bringing together young people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds for development and discussion during a one-year leadership program. South Australia has been privileged to grow from the history and cultures of the traditional owners and has matured further as successive waves of arrivals have brought their ideas and practices to this land. Welcoming Futures works to continue the cycle by bringing diverse communities together and offering young people the tools and skills to advocate for their own communities while understanding and appreciating the needs and beliefs of others.
Funded in 2018/19 by the South Australian Government, through the Department of Human Services, Welcoming Futures 2019/20 will continue with Federal Government funding to develop leadership skills and networks and help us tell young peoples’ stories, build skills, sustainability and social cohesion.
The young leaders meet once a month for training and then practical application of these skills via targeted mini projects. Participants work with mentors from different cultural backgrounds to further spread the message and benefit from previous experiences and stories.
Welcoming Futures develops young people in 6 ways:
- Team-working and learning in an intercultural group
- Targeted training and development based on existing knowledge and skill sets
- Access to speakers and trainers from all walks of life, from education to business, local and state government
- Individual mentoring by professionals of different cultural backgrounds
- Practical skills application through monthly mini projects
- Team-working as a group on Key Performance Indicators such as community dinners, Walk Together and National Unity Week, large-scale charity Fundraising, Intercultural Forum event.
Welcoming Futures 2019/20 brings 14 young participants from a wide range of backgrounds including Australia, Europe, Africa and Asia to learn and work together over a 12-month program. Participants learn Kaurna language and culture, team-building and working, self-reflection and evaluation, public speaking, event planning, co-ordination and evaluation, working with volunteers, grant writing and acquittal, fundraising, negotiation and debating, personal leadership strengths, networking, writing for the media, speech writing, reporting, telling the story via film and media, among many others.
In 2018/19 the initiative worked with the Governor’s Leadership Program, State politicians, the City of Charles Sturt, ThinkHuman, Nifty Outcomes, Click Films, the Helpmann Academy, Tea Tree Gully Council, Port Adelaide/Enfield Council, the City of Adelaide, the University of Adelaide, Flinders University, AMES Australia, SocialMediaAOK, Slice of Life Community Films, Second Chances SA, Vox Liminis UK, and Nunyara Conference Centre.
In 2019/20 Welcoming Futures will continue and grow from this strong beginning, with previous participants joining us as mentors, sharing knowledge and lived experience, and providing comprehensive and sympathetic support from a wide range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
