Important information
- Name: Empowering Communities Project - Grant Round 1
- Status: Closed
- Amount: $5,000 - $30,000
- Successful recipients:
View recipients
Baluk Arts’s Kaptify Artist In Residency program: a peer and vocational support program using street art as an engagement tool.
Pat Cronin Foundation’s Be Wise 2.0 Program: a youth education program promoting wise choices around violence and ending the ‘coward punch.’
Family Life Ltd will be co-designing safety and wellbeing solutions for Casey’s Afghan community.
Casey Community Advisory Taskforce’s project: will work with women at risk or who are experiencing family violence.
Indiancare’s Kutumb 2.0 Project: aims to raise awareness about gendered violence within the Indian community and deliver family strengthening programs.
South Sudanese Australian Academic Society Inc’s (SSAS) uses cultural dance, storytelling and art as an engagement and mentoring tool for young people, single-parent families and those with low English-speaking skills.
Wellsprings for Women’s Safety and Equality Matter program: will provide multilingual safety resources for culturally and linguistically diverse residents, especially women.
Playgroup VIC’s Connecting and Empowering Communities Program: uses inclusive all abilities playgroups to activate social connections, engagement and empower residents; particularly at risk families.
Apostolic Faith Mission VIC CARE’s (AFM VICCARE) Save the Youth Hope of Australia’s Future Program: will provide a variety of youth recreation and mentoring programs and also aim to improve young people’s relationships with police.
Islamic Council of Victoria’s playgroups program: for multicultural and Muslim families to connect and engage culturally and linguistically diverse women.
About
The City of Casey has received the Empowering Communities grant from the Victorian Government as part of the Building Safer Communities Program - Empowering Communities Grants - Stream 3 (Round 2) Guidelines. This is primarily due to crime rates being above the State average for vehicle and retail theft, aggravated robbery, residential burglary, drug possession, family violence and common assault. The Grant has enabled the establishment of a community action group, the Casey Action Group, comprised of twelve community leaders. The Action group will allocate resources to local grassroots initiatives aimed at addressing identified crime prevention and community safety issues across a two year period.
The Casey Empowering Communities Project
The Casey Empowering Communities Project will provide eligible groups and organisations with funding for the delivery of pilot projects that take an evidence-informed but innovative approach to address local issues impacting on crime and perceptions of safety. This opportunity is for incorporated (or auspiced) not-for-profit community groups, either emerging or established.
Round 1 grants are for a six month project delivery period and will require community engagement and co-design components in the planning. Grants are available to groups currently providing services to Casey residents as well as those wishing to commence providing services to Casey residents (through a primary location or outreach/satellite site in Casey, or from a surrounding municipality).
This initial funding provides organisations with an opportunity to explore, with their clients or communities, strategies which will meet the unique needs of Casey’s diverse community. Providers can trial a service which is grounded in evidence but incorporates innovation and tests new approaches which meet the community's specific and unique needs.
Funding for Grant Round 1 has been allocated for project acquittal in May 2023. Recipients of Round 1 will be eligible to apply for a second round of funding in 2023.
Project objectives
- Connection: Increase community connections for priority groups* enhancing social inclusion, equity and access to services. (*identified vulnerable groups - women, identity based groups, young people and seniors).
- Community identity: Foster an inclusive, shared Casey identity through targeted interventions which celebrate diversity and multiculturalism.
- Safety: Support place based initiatives ‘in or outside the home’ which address crime, or increase people’s perception of safety, by design of physical assets or through media approaches.
By strengthening community connection, identity and safety, the Casey Empowering Communities Project aims to contribute to a long term vision of reduction in crime and family violence.
The Building Safer Communities Program was funded by the Victorian Government’s Empowering Communities initiative as part of the Building Safer Communities Program.