Multicultural Women’s Hub

SPELLBOUND STORYTIME PERFORMERS SURAIYA AND RUBINA, 2020. PHOTO: CHANEL BIALA

Ace Pillar

Multicultural Women’s Hub

This community and cultural development program takes place in a series of community hubs across Western Sydney, supporting women from diverse backgrounds, providing free, accessible creative skills development workshops, and connecting women with local community service providers and community resources. The program supports women in developing creative business enterprises, improving English literacy and digital skills and obtaining employment through creativity-based training and brokered employment opportunities. The program builds on the strengths of the women themselves, providing platforms for knowledge and story sharing and supporting community cohesion.

The program creates community-driven, engaging, welcoming, safe spaces that maximise participants’ interests and social networks, strengthen peer support systems, and promote capacity building. The aim is to support women in developing unique creative enterprises lead by their own interest and abilities. 

Offering meaningful, long-term engagement with the women, the program challenges, nurtures and encourages the participants to work in groups using  collective learning processes that combine contemporary and traditional creative practices. The focus is on business development skills via flexible and tailored training, hands on approach generating artistic and culturally inspired practices while up-skilling women. 

We support tertiary education and promote an array of work opportunities via diverse networks from various industries. The program champions the wellbeing and builds the confidence of women from diverse backgrounds while supporting financial independence, active participation in society, access to educational and training opportunities as well as embracing and celebrating their cultural diversity.

A snapshot of hubs developed since 2016:

  • Didi’s Tribe (Parramatta, 2016 – 2020) a collective creating and selling bespoke ceramic home-wares designed in tribal Indian art forms. 
  • The Kitchen Hub (Granville, 2017): a social enterprise exploring cooking, cuisine, culture and stories. 
  • Afro Sistahs (Western Sydney, 2017 – 2020): a collective of young women establishing a community-based African women’s screen production social enterprise/business. Spellbound Storytime (Auburn, 2017 – 2021): a multilingual storytelling and publication social enterprise focussing on multilingual early childhood education, storytelling and publishing. 
  • Spellbound Storytellers (Parramatta, 2018 – 2021): a storytelling enterprise focussing on multilingual early childhood education. 
  • Fairfield West Sewing Hub (Fairfield, 2018 – 2020): An alteration business operating from the school focusing on sewing skills and exploration of creative textiles and garment making. 
  • Blouse Making Hub (Auburn, 2019 – 2021): a sewing and embroidery enterprise business specialising in traditional Indian clothing, specifically making “chole” (traditional top) and “kurti” (sleeveless tunic). 
  • – South Sudanese Creative Women’s Hub (Fairfield and Blacktown 2019): a collective of inter-generational women gathering to pass on and learn traditional skills such as jewellery beading, hair braiding and cooking. 

THE EMBROIDERERS COLLECTIVE AND JONATHAN JONES/ PROJECT: UNTITLED (TRANSCRIPTIONS OF COUNTRY), 2021. PHOTO: NANCY TRIEU

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