The City of Greater Geelong is celebrating the talents, influence, and stories of Victoria's rich multicultural communities by marking Cultural Diversity Week.
Cultural Diversity Week for 2023 began on Monday 13 March with this year's theme Our Past. Our Future: Celebrating and reflecting on the contributions of Victoria's multicultural communities.
The theme is an invitation to Victorians of all ages and backgrounds to reflect on multicultural Victoria's long history and celebrate its bright future.
The celebration of our nation's multicultural communities concludes with the United Nation's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21.
Geelong is a multicultural city, home, and a welcoming place to people from many countries, with 17.7 per cent of our total population of 271,065 born overseas.
The top countries of birth include the United Kingdom, India, New Zealand, Philippines, and China.
As part of celebrating Geelong's multicultural communities, the invitation is to view a range of beautiful portraits of community members dressed in the traditional dress of their home countries.
Greater Geelong Mayor Trent Sullivan
It's important that we recognise and mark such a significant week.The City of Greater Geelong supports various events celebrating our cultural diversity, including the recent Pako Festa, Victoria's largest free celebration of cultural diversity.
We're enormously proud of our multicultural communities and as a City we strive to create inclusion, respect and a sense of belonging no matter where a person was born or raised.
Cr Jim Mason, Chair of the Multicultural Affairs portfolio
Marking Cultural Diversity Week is another step forward in breaking down the barriers often faced by people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.The City's residents celebrate the enormous diversity that exists within our community, and this is another way in which we can pay our respect to all cultures that make Greater Geelong a colourful and vibrant place to be.
In addition, Geelong has been recognised as a 'Refugee Welcome Zone' since 2002 and welcomes hundreds of refugees every year as one of the primary settlement areas in Victoria for humanitarian migrants.
Cultural Diversity Week culminates on Tuesday 21 March with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination | United Nations urging residents to call out any form of racial discrimination.
