Darebin Council’s CEO and seven General Managers are proving to their staff and other local Councils in Australia – how important a commitment to diversity is for providing services to multicultural communities. The Executive Management Team (EMT) of Darebin City Council recently won the prestigious LGPro Award for Excellence 2004 for Service Delivery, for their role in creating a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Darebin Ethnic Communities Council (DECC).
DECC is the peak body representing the many ethnic community groups in Darebin. It advises Council and other levels of Government about the issues and concerns of people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities who call Darebin home.
“This award highlights the enormous effort Darebin Council’s EMT puts into ensuring diversity issues are systemically addressed and at the forefront of all its policies, decision making and service delivery,” said Gaetano Greco, Chairperson of DECC. “It is a well deserved recognition for the CEO and the seven General Managers who make up the Executive Management Team. I congratulate them and all Darebin staff for winning this award.”
The EMT has worked very closely with DECC over several years to make the MoU a reality. The MoU sets in place Darebin’s firm commitment to leading edge service delivery to multicultural communities.
Darebin has over 128,000 residents, 50 per cent of whom are first and second generation migrants who come from 148 different countries and speak 105 languages. Darebin has always had a large number of immigrants – Italians and Greeks from the post war period, Chinese and Vietnamese from the 1970s and, more recently, people from the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.
The City itself encompasses several suburbs in Melbourne’s north, including Northcote and Thornbury in the south of the municipality to the suburbs of Preston, Reservoir and parts of Bundoora in the north.
The negotiations between Darebin and DECC produced a Council wide review of how Council services are managed in such a diverse city. Each of the Departments, spearheaded by the General Manager, worked hard to improve their services by taking into account multicultural issues.
David Priess, who presented the award to Darebin’s EMT on behalf of LGPro, said the MoU positions Darebin Council as a leading and innovative Local Government Authority.
“This Award is recognition of Darebin’s responsiveness to, and engagement with, its diverse community,” David Priess said.
Darebin CEO, Philip Shanahan, was pleased to win the award.
“The LGPro Award for Excellence acknowledges Darebin’s innovation and best practice in service delivery to our multicultural community,” Philip Shanahan said. “Council takes its leadership role very seriously. As the largest employer and most visible organisation in Darebin it’s important for us to lead the way in promoting and celebrating diversity, for our residents and our staff.”
Darebin’s dedicated Multicultural Affairs Unit used the MoU to improve access and participation in Council services and activities.
“For example, we developed and implemented an inhouse multilingual communication service and operate a comprehensive web site that includes information in 12 languages other than English spoken in Darebin,” Philip Shanahan said.
Council also runs an ethnic specific program at Darebin Libraries to encourage greater participation of non English speaking background communities in Library activities. Ethnic specific programs operate in key departments to address the needs of emerging and minority communities, including the African Youth Access program, a Women’s Only swimming program, the Halal Food project and theUN Room at the Reservoir Civic Centre. Further initiatives include being the first Council to formalise the training and remuneration of language aides to assist Council to communicate with residents in languages other than English.
“Of course, none of our accomplishments would have been possible without the dedication and work of DECC, particularly its Chairperson, Gaetano Greco,” Philip Shanahan said. Philip Shanahan urged other Local Governments to adopt similar processes for managing services for diverse communities. The benefits the MoU brings to the organisation and community convinced him Councils can play a larger role in our multicultural society.
“Local Government is at the forefront of managing the issues and challenges of Australia’s multicultural society,” Philip Shanahan said. “Councils can only claim to truly represent the interests of our diverse residents when we are responsive and accountable to their needs. Winning an award like this is a great result, one that will encourage us to continue breaking new ground in service planning and delivery to our multicultural community.”
