Chinese community members
enjoy meeting native lizards.
Photo: Chin-Bee Koh, Chinese
Australian Services Society.
A series of half day workshops held between May and September 2007 gave 353 members of the Chinese, Arabic and Vietnamese communities the chance to get up close to native animals and plants.
Delivered by seven Sydney metropolitan councils, the 13 training sessions were facilitated by bi-lingual educators to increase understanding and appreciation of biodiversity and the environment among culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups. The workshop agenda included classwork, hands-on live animal displays and tree planting.
The bi-lingual educators are employed as part of the Ethnic Communities Sustainable Living project which is a partnership project between the Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW (DECC) and the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW (ECC) to educate ethnic communities to care for the environment and live more sustainably at home, work and play.
Feedback suggests that workshop participants thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to experience native wildlife and found the brochures and information translated into community languages to be valuable take-home resources. The popularity of the workshops means three of the seven councils are planning to run further workshops at their own expense.
The project was funded by the NSW Government's Environmental Trust with the workshops based on Bankstown City Council's modified version of the DECC Backyard Buddies Program for CALD communities.
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