Still waiting for your turn?
If you are one of the thousands of people who have registered to participate or host a Welcome Dinner, you may be wondering why you haven’t had a turn yet. In the past year alone, we have doubled the number of dinners (and lunches) held and we are about to reach the incredible milestone of our 200th Welcome Dinner. Every Welcome Dinner takes an average 10 hours of coordination work, primarily done by volunteers. If we have not yet managed to find or appoint a Coordinator in your area, then we probably haven’t had any dinners there yet and since we try to match people up locally, you may not have been invited to one in another area. However, you should be receiving our quarterly newsletter and invitations to larger Community Welcome Dinners when they occur. If you are waiting to host, you can attend as a participant for now. One of our challenges is that in some areas we have a long waiting list and in other areas we haven’t yet found hosts. We are also always seeking more help to invite newly arrived people to take part and much of our time is spent getting out into our local communities to connect with newly arrived people – please assist us with this if you can!


Developing high quality facilitation skills – a deep dive with the Groupwork Institute.
Reflection by Angela Moran - WDP Victoria Central Hub Member On Saturday 9th December 2017 I was lucky enough, along with several other WDP volunteers, to participate in another wonderful professional development workshop thanks to Joining The Dots. The aim of the...

Debra’s Story: “I am so humbled by the kindness and generosity of humanity at these dinners”
Today's story comes from Debra, who is based out of Hobart and has been a facilitator for us for over a year. Here's her take on The Welcome Dinner Project Open Space for People to Connect in Their Own Way I've been a Welcome Dinner Project facilitator for just over a...

Valerie’s Story: Now I can say, “Wow, I’m great as a migrant!”
12 Days of life-changing stories from The Welcome Dinner Project... This Christmas season, we wanted to look back on the past 5 years of The Welcome Dinner Project and reflect on how much it has grown and impacted people's lives. From small...
WDP Victoria Retreat Reflections
Retreat Reflection by James Seow I had some time to reflect on the volunteers' retreat we attended last weekend and feel compelled to share my thoughts with you. 🙂 It's heartwarming and reassuring to see volunteers and staff - people in my community - so passionate,...

How businesses can thrive
Thrivability in Business workshop - Melbourne University's Thrive Research Hub, August 2017 Written by James Seow I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Thrivability in Business workshop organised by Melbourne University's Thrive Research Hub in August 2017....

Join in the fun this month with #WelcomeYourWay
You may have seen that The Welcome Dinner Project team have been busy bees on our social media channels lately. This is because, on November 1st, we launched our campaign with a difference! We took on your advice from our previous crowd-funding campaigns and decided...