Community Programs

The Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights is strongly connected to diverse communities of Muslim women through community programs that are delivered in both metro and regional Melbourne. These programs, delivered through information sessions, groupwork programs, workshops or camps, carry a unique lens that allow the safe unpacking of cultural and religious ideas and concepts into conversations on important and current topics of concern in Australia.

Our programs have been designed and crafted through extensive community consultations and experience in hearing the needs and voices of Muslim women on the ground.

We regularly conduct community consultations to understand the most relevant concerns and challenges facing Muslim women and young women.

The results inform our service-planning to ensure services and programs are meaningful and relevant to those we work alongside.

Our community programs revolve around four key outcomes areas:

Enhancing parenting skills of migrant Muslim parents

Our parenting programs support Muslim women to navigate parenting challenges and upskill them with tools to support effective parenting in the Australian context.

The sessions encourage women to explore their cultural, traditional and intergenerational styles of parenting and their place within the Australian context. They also help foster connections with other Muslim women to develop support networks.

Supporting settlement in Australia

Muslim women migrating to Australia often come from countries marked by devastation and conflict. They face unique challenges and structural barriers to accessing services and engaging with Australian society.

Our settlement programs are group-based sessions that focus on supporting newly arrived Muslim women and their children to navigate the complex challenges of migrating to a new country. They promote individual and community capacity-building.

In delivering these programs, we apply a culturally sensitive lens to improving health and personal and economic wellbeing, bringing isolated and vulnerable Muslim women together to build connections and social support.

Empowering newly arrived young Muslim women

The Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights has a range of programs for newly arrived Muslim young women. These include peer support sessions, a Living in Australia Program and a Leadership Program for young women.

Developing Muslim women leaders

Our leadership programs involve intensive small-group leadership development training of women in the areas of self-awareness, self-development, confidence, gender equality and human rights, communication, community and participation, Australian laws and legal systems, and leadership in parenting. They also cover skills in project coordination and development.

Mentors are engaged to embark on various projects that benefit other women.

Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights has also designed and delivered community programs on many other topics. These include:

Countering Islamophobia

Islamophobia is on the rise in Australia. This is especially so against Muslim women, who are more visible and often on the front lines of discrimination and Islamophobia as soft targets for prejudice-motivated hate crimes and vilification.

Communities of Muslims, young or old, have consistently experienced Islamophobia as a lived reality. This experience is often heightened when acts of terror occur abroad. Islamophobia directly impacts issues of identity and a sense of belonging in Australia.

We work with young Muslims and Muslim women to raise awareness of their rights as Australian citizens under anti-discrimination laws and human rights instruments such as the Victorian Charter of Rights and Responsibilities.

As a way of addressing these ongoing and pervasive systemic issues, we also assist people with seeking redress when incidents of Islamophobia occur.

Prevention of family violence and Early and Forced Marriage

We work on prevention of family violence through training women and young women on relevant laws and their rights, with an understanding of the dynamics and effects of intergenerational trauma and family violence, including early and forced marriage.

We also work on the issue of toxic masculinity and the prevention of aggression in young men.

For support with family violence, see our family violence support services.

Promoting community and civic participation

Participation of Muslim women in the community is important for their self-development and shaping a sense of belonging to community and country.

We run women’s groupwork programs that focus on supporting migrant women to develop confidence, capabilities and skills to get involved in – and be agents of change for – their communities.