Recognise

CALD Community Engagement

Issue:
The Recognise campaign is an important social initiative in addressing the long legacy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage in Australia.

The campaign has been successful in gaining broad support, achieving over 300,000 pledges to support of the recognition of Australia's First Peoples in the Constitution, and dealing with racial discrimination.

It became apparent to Recognise that levels of awareness and corresponding support were not consistent across the community, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that there was a lack of understanding of their campaign in CALD communities. With the racially discriminatory aspects of the Constitution also affecting CALD communities, it is important that they have an understanding of the issues.

Solution:
DiverseWerks was brought in by Recognise to help them develop a concerted strategy to achieve more significant engagement with CALD communities.

The strategy was developed as a collaboration between DiverseWerks and Myriad Consultants. The strategy was built on three components:

Development and distribution of information broadly into CALD communities through CALD media, a range of media relations activities and active media partnerships.
Targeted stakeholder relations that moved from national to state structures and approaches and was complemented by an event strategy that is both proactive and reactive in nature.
A deeper level of community education in a peer-led, small group approach that was rolled out through train-the-trainer workshops.

Results:
The Recognise CALD Community Engagement Strategy represents a comprehensive and meaningful approach to engagement with CALD communities on this important issue.

The strategy is a targeted and articulated approach to maximising the amount of information about constitutional recognition getting into CALD communities and ensuring that this information is supported and validated by key CALD organisations and prominent opinion leaders.