Living in Harmony Community Grants 1999

Queensland

Living in Harmony for Young Parenting Women

$11,800 Awarded

This project, now completed, aimed to:

improve relations between all the young women of YPP
deal with racism directed at a particularly vulnerable group of young clients - a marginalised special needs group, many of whom are adolescents who have missed out on continuing their education through becoming parents early
correct misinformation and build positive attitudes
enhance the understanding of racism and of difference, and promote tolerance:

toward young parenting women from cultures other than Anglo-Saxon
especially towards Aboriginal/Islander young women, who at times have felt and borne the brunt of racist and bigoted attitudes

encourage more enlightened parenting around issues of tolerance
enhance relationships between young parenting women and other significant people in their lives by assisting them recognise and challenge discriminatory and destructive attitudes which affect their lives

The project:

proceeded from the premise that fear of difference is at the heart of all ignorance and prejudice, so adopted the statement for the project that "difference is good and desirable"
worked to:

counter attitudes of intolerance that from time to time within YPP groups, often associated with cultural or racial difference
broaden the young women’s views by exposing them "softly softly" to different food, music, language and other cross-cultural experiences

brought in women from other cultures to talk about their experiences of pregnancy, birth and parenting, so that shared feelings might dispel the fear of difference
as a substitute for the originally planned more formal cross-cultural workshops which were later perceived to be inappropriate for the clientele, arranged "multicultural" cooking demonstrations to reinforce positive attitudes, which involved both Indigenous women and women from:

Bosnia
China
Egypt
El Salvador
Greece
India
Italy
Lebanon
Malaysia
Philippines
Russia
Scotland
Singapore
South Africa
Sudan
Thailand
Vietnam

found the multicultural cooking demonstrations a very successful low-key way of achieving interaction and interest amongst the young women
incorporated into its activities a spontaneous request from the young women to develop a Multicultural Cookbook to keep as a reminder of the project
turned Harmony Day into a very significant communal day for the project, with:

37 people travelling to Stradbroke Island, a joint project between YPP and the Indigenous Health Service, with young women and their children from both organisations
an Aboriginal Elder woman speaking on aspects of Aboriginal culture and history on the island

sought no media publicity as this could have been counterproductive in view of the sensitivities of the clients on the issues

The project:

gave participants, many of whom lead socially and culturally isolated lives, the opportunity to gradually internalise less bigoted, more tolerant views, and the capacity to impart these views to their children in forming their emerging social concepts
did not use formal written surveys, as inappropriate for the clientele, but received anecdotal feedback from the young women, staff and other visiting service providers and health professionals that:

the young women’s confidence to air their ideas increased over time
attitudinal change to "other" groups also occurred over time
these preliminary concepts of tolerance and inclusion would need to be reinforced over time as they were "in stark contrast to some socialisation patterns and some mainstream views in the media" which informed the young women’s original views

as a pilot project, has encouraged YPP to incorporate a multicultural component into all its group activities and processes from now on