SYDNEY, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Multicultural communities in the Australian State of Victoria will be given dedicated assistance to help stem the COVID-19 pandemic and its widespread economic and social effects.
On Thursday, Minister for Multicultural Affairs Ros Spence announced 11.3 million Australian dollars (7.2 million U.S. dollars) to aid these communities, who face the added burden of language barriers, familial separation and more uncertain working conditions in what is already a difficult time.
"We know that multicultural communities have faced unique challenges throughout the pandemic. That's why this package of support is so important," Spence said.
"Here in Victoria we're proudly multicultural and we're proud of our multicultural and multi-faith communities. They deserve our support as we deal with the coronavirus pandemic together."
Close to half of the funding will be directed towards youth facing financial hardship, while part of it will be used to bolster the government's multilingual messaging -- helping those with English as a second language navigate their way through the pandemic and access available support.
Bernie Nott, CEO of migrant services organisation, Spectrum Victoria, told Xinhua that recent migrants to Australia, in particular, face falling through the cracks of government support.
"The families that we work with, who are from many different cultures and faith backgrounds, already experience challenges of social isolation, language barriers and difficulties accessing services -- and then you put COVID-19 on top of that it really compounds those difficulties," Nott said.
"One of the challenges we have is that there's a lot of conflicting information out there about what's good and what's not, and what people should be doing."
Part of Spectrum's work is with refugees who have recently arrived in Australia and are settling into a new culture and a new life, which means navigating an entirely new system and services.
Nott added that while it is important for the government to support Australia's multicultural communities, they are also stepping up and providing support amongst themselves.
"One of the threads in multicultural communities, and throughout the whole history of migration in Australia, has been their resilience, entrepreneurialism and enterprise," he said.
"As well as their ability to wrap themselves around each other and support each other, and we've seen some wonderful examples of that." Enditem
