Sudanese situation
SSI sends support to communities
If you have questions about family reunification, you can access support or make a donation to RACS in NSW or RAILS in QLD or find out more at Refugee Legal in Victoria.
Help Gazan families at risk of homelessness in Australia. Donate to our Crisis Response Fund.
If you have questions about family reunification, you can access support or make a donation to RACS in NSW or RAILS in QLD or find out more at Refugee Legal in Victoria.
Our services engage and empower community members, foster collaboration, and promote positive change.
Our language services and diversity training workshops foster meaningful cultural awareness and integration for organisations and individuals.
Our educational and support programs empower adults and young people to identify and take action against abusive behavior.
Our programs promote lifelong learning, foster economic opportunities, and enhance overall well-being and potential.
Enhancing the employability of individuals and supporting employers to create a diverse workforce and inclusive culture.
We deliver a range of programs that help families, children, and youth to thrive and reach their full potential.
Our programs educate, empower, and support individuals to lead balanced and fulfilling lives.
Recruiting and supporting an aged care workforce for the future.
Our settlement services connect newcomers with resources, knowledge, and skills for personal growth and community integration.
A team led by experienced professionals and dedicated support.
SSI is an organisation that was founded by, employs, and supports, many women. Empowering women in our sphere of influence is embedded within our core purpose.
According to our research, women in Australia do not achieve equitable outcomes in social and financial wellbeing, level of influence, access to public office and career pathways. The situation is even more dire for women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds including, migrants and refugees backgrounds.
Government and influential women’s organisations have highlighted that economic empowerment, safe housing, freedom from all forms of violence and freedom of socio-political involvement are the most important goals to work towards advancing outcomes for women.
Addressing these goals for our female staff, clients and multicultural communities at large will contribute to their safety, career development, independence, wellbeing and ability to make positive choices.
SSI launched our Women and Girls Strategic Plan that focuses on all women employed and supported by SSI. The plan has a particular emphasis on women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.
The overarching goals of the plan are to advance and protect the rights of women and girls, and drive change towards safety, equal choice, prosperity, and economic empowerment. These goals are broken down into five strategic pillars:
Read our Women and Girls Strategic Plan in full. SSI is committed to modelling these goals internally within our own processes and have begun to implement changes based on the early recommendations from this plan.
The SSI Women and Girls Strategy targets all women employed and supported by SSI. The plan has a particular focus on women of culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) backgrounds, who make up a large proportion of our constituency. Over the past year, we have made significant progress in improving gender equality in our community, with particular highlights including:
RISE is a collaborative/partnership project between Diversity Council of Australia (DCA), SSI (lead) and Chief Executive Women (CEW) that aims to address systemic barriers in career progression and leadership for women from culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) backgrounds. RISE stands for Recognise, Inspire, Support, Energise and signals rising in the leadership journey of CARM women.
This project is funded by the Office for Women (Prime Minister and Cabinet) through the Women’s Leadership & Development Program 2022 – 2026.
DCA will work with 25 organisations across Australia (NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia) to implement organisational change interventions. SSI will work with 15 CARM women nominated in each of the 25 organisations to work through career advancement and leadership development. Participants will get an opportunity to opt into the third partner’s program – the CEW Women’s Leadership Program.
Across SSI, several events are held over International Women’s Day (IWD) ranging from discussion sessions to online webinars and involvement in campaigns. Our international advocacy in 2022 saw SSI at the Commission of Status of Women in New York where we co-facilitated a conversation circle of over a hundred people focused on racism, colonisation, migrants and refugees, a parallel event on multicultural communities in regional Australia and another on refugees in the Asia Pacific region together with APNOR (Asia Pacific Network of Refugees).