Statement of Support for ECCV’s All One Together campaign
Eastern Community Legal Centre is both proud and honoured to become an All One Together Campaign Ambassador. Our Centre’s vision is of human rights, fairness and justice for all, working together with our local culturally and linguistically diverse and faith communities to tackle inequality and elevate the voices of those with lived experience of discrimination. The ECLC community strongly supports the campaign’s focus on tackling racism.
ECLC’s anti-racism project ‘Amplifying Community Voices in the East’ (ACVE) was implemented in partnership with the Centre for Holistic Health, IndianCare, and the Communities’ Council on Ethnic Issues. The project provided a series of capacity building workshops through 2022 with five community leaders focused on challenging racism and sharing the voices and experiences of those most impacted. Training sessions were led by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and Democracy in Colour and were tailored to the group’s needs, providing them with knowledge on Australia’s human rights framework, advocacy techniques and using their knowledge and lived experiences to speak out against racism.
ECLC also worked with the Parliament of Victoria on the Engaging Communities in Democracy project in 2022 that produced the You Me & MPs Toolkit – designed to support and enhance engagement between culturally and linguistically diverse and faith communities, the Parliament of Victoria (POV) and local Members of Parliament (MPs).
This Toolkit was conceived, designed and delivered under the guidance of the Engaging Communities in Democracy (ECD) Project Advisory Committee and is based on the lived experiences of people in the Eastern Metropolitan Region of Melbourne (EMR) together with feedback provided by local MPs and Electorate Officers.
ECLC also acknowledges the enduring sovereignty of First Nations communities and their inherent custodianship of this land now called ‘Melbourne’, and on whose country we have the honour to live and work, but who continue to experience the devasting impacts of colonisation, including structural and systemic racism.
The Centre stands in solidarity with First Nations communities, working closely with many First Nations organisations including Mullum Mullum Indigenous Gathering Place, Oonah Belonging Place and Boorndawan Willam Aboriginal Healing Service (BWAHS) to listen, learn and support First Nations communities.
ECLC will continue to advocate for change and support First Nations leaders as we work together towards reconciliation by supporting the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its vision of Voice, Treaty and Truth.
Michael Smith, CEO
