Stories
Sandgate Community Dinner
In August, we did something that we have never done before in Queensland. We had a community dinner welcoming hundreds of newly arrived Iraqi families on the North Side. We were quite nervous as the guests began arriving in droves, with the queue going out the door...
Family Picnic
In July, we took part in the Welcome Family Picnic at Coopers Plains library with our good friends from Mums 4 Refugees and the Brisbane City Council. Councillor Steve Griffiths from the Moorooka Ward dropped in to say “hello” and “welcome” and to officially open the...
Dinners Planned for 2017
With the loss of one of our volunteer coordinators, who has headed overseas for a long term volunteer placement, we have only had one home dinner in the last part of 2016. With over 300 people now registered to attend or host a Welcome Dinner in WA we are struggling...
Curtin University Community Dinner
In a week of thunderstorms and rain we had an outdoors community dinner at Curtin University. Whilst it was freezing cold, the universe smiled on us and kept the rain away. A large range of people came to the dinner which is what the Welcome Dinner Project is all...
Welcome Dinner Cooking Class – Perth
To celebrate Refugee Week this year we organised the first Welcome Dinner Project Cooking Class, a cooking class taught by three people from refugee and migrant backgrounds. These wonderful home cooks taught the participants how to cook Tamil chicken curry, Pakistani...
Welcome Dinner Project Launches in the South West WA
In August we trained a great group of ten people committed to providing a welcome environment to newly arrived people in Bunbury and the South West. The following week we had a lovely community dinner to launch the Project. About forty people came along and had a...
2016 Welcome Dinners – here’s a snapshot…
We're really excited to share that more than 50 Welcome Dinners were hosted across the country this year, connecting approximately 1,500 newly arrived and established Australians. Majority of the dinners were hosted in local hosts' homes, with a handful of bigger...
Welcome Dinner Project now in Geelong!
Throughout the year we noticed that registrations for The Welcome Dinner Project were increasing in Geelong, a vibrant city 75kms south-west of Melbourne. Many generous people were offering to host dinners too! So we put the call-out to those who have registered to...
Community dinners growing in Victoria
By Gillian Saxon and Meagan Williams SOUTHBANK COMMUNITY DINNER On September 29th a fantastic Welcome Dinner was hosted at the Boyd Community Hub in Southbank in partnership with the City of Melbourne. It was fantastic to see such a large turnout of around 40 guests...
Understanding Islam workshop
By Gillian Saxon Have you ever wanted to understand more about Islam but didn’t know how to find out more? Or perhaps you’ve wanted to ask what Sharia Law is, why the hijab (head scarf) is important or what it’s like to be a Muslim in Australia in 2016? Our Welcome...
