Once again, thank you to Sina Lengelsen and all the staff at AMCS for making this a life time experience for my photographic career.

Sina Lengelsen

AMCS‘ Volunteering conference was packed with information for both public and volunteers. There were some invaluable insights from speakers from diverse intellect and businesses.
And it was precious for me to see how much my portraits added to the day.
Ash Rosshandler, CEO Good Company, an interesting business, talked about successful volunteer placement in the workforce and how his company works as an enabler. Apparently Good Company gives out gift vouchers to its staff as a reward, paid leave so the staff can spend it on some volunteering time whatever the area interests them.

George Lekakis, CEO Fronditha Care talked about how basically volunteering comes from love and passion. He talked about the volunteers at Fronditha Care, praised their endless commitments within the Greek Community and how his company rewards  and motivates this ongoing passion.

George Lekakis

Wesa Chau, recipient of the 2006 Service Delivery to Multicultural Victoria award, 2010 Young Victorian of the Year and inductee to the 2012 Victorian Honour Roll for Women. Wesa’s speech focused on international students. How to encourage them getting involved in volunteering in Victoria and how to keep this commitment realistic with their ongoing busy schedule with school. Wesa believes when given the flexibility the students commit and get the job done. She also added that the school holidays are a time to take the advantage and a lot of these students would be happy to be part of some community work via volunteering.

Dr Hass Dellal, Executive Director Australian Multicultural Foundation talked about best practice examples and challanges faced in relation to volunteering within ethnic communities. Naturally, relating to him culturally, I found a lot of value in his talk. He encouraged the organisations to locate a ‘champion’ within each community and approach people via this ‘champion’. Dr Dellal also pointed out that ‘volunteering’ isn’t necessarily being described the same way it’s in Western language and how in some cultures this is just a natural thing.

Dr Hass Dellal

Sue Noble, CEO Volunteering Victoria talked about how much they’ve achieved with the commitment of their volunteers and she pointed to the facts saying ‘this is what we achieved, imagine what we can achieve with more involvement’.
She pointed that how much traveling opens one’s eyes and realise how poor lives around the world.

Sue Noble

Both Labour and Liberal Parties were represented at the conference.
Professor Des Cahill OAM, AMCS Board summarised the conference with facts and statistics. Apparently according to the statistics, the ethnic communities’ involvement in volunteering is relatively low in Victoria and Professor Cahill talked about the reasons.

Professor Des Cahill

As well as getting so much appreciation for my photographs at the conference, these three women made my day. (Nhung, Alena and Jeong from Migrant Mothers of Australia).

Nhung, Alena and Jeong