FCVic is delighted to share that we successfully ran a pilot workshop in Shepparton on 12 August 2025 as part of FCVic’s Community-Led Financial Resilience Project, funded by Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation.
The aim of the pilot workshop was to test our materials for the “train the trainer” style series of workshops, targeted at informing workers in multicultural organisations in disaster-prone regions about financial resilience in Victoria’s diverse communities. The Shepparton pilot, organised with our project partner, the Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District Inc., was an excellent opportunity to speak with local multicultural community leaders and support workers to understand the specific needs of Shepparton’s multicultural communities when facing natural disasters, and to test how our materials could be refined for workshops to be held across Victoria.
Our Disaster Recovery Lead, Kellie Davis, led an engaging discussion with multicultural community leaders and workers in Shepparton, supported by Shweta Pathak and Georgina Molloy. This was followed by a communal lunch, where we could all speak informally together. The session helped FCVic’s projects team to understand more about the specific banking and insurance issues facing Victoria’s multicultural communities, particularly those impacting new migrants and refugees. In addition to hearing directly from community leaders about what information is needed and how it should be presented, it was fantastic to have the local financial counselling agency, Primary Care Connect, attend the workshop to encourage referral pathways from multicultural communities to local financial counselling services. FCVic is also grateful to the Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District Inc. for hosting the pilot workshop.
The intention of the workshops is to build financial resilience in multicultural communities in regional Victoria, so that multicultural organisations, support workers, and people in communities are better prepared to cope with the financial impacts of natural disasters and know how to access help from financial counsellors. FCVic’s project team now looks forward to hosting a number of workshops across Victoria’s regional areas in partnership with regional multicultural community organisations.
In the coming weeks, FCVic will run workshops in partnership with the following organisations across Victoria:
- Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council – Ballarat workshop
- Gippsland Multicultural Services – Morwell workshop
- Loddon Campaspe Multicultural Services – Bendigo workshop
- North East Multicultural Association – Wangaratta workshop
FCVic also plans to provide workshops in Mildura, in partnership with the Sunraysia Mallee Ethnic Communities Council, and in Wodonga, in partnership with Albury-Wodonga Ethnic Communities’ Council, later next month.
We are excited to work with each project partner, their communities, and financial counselling agencies to deliver meaningful content about banking, insurance, and accessing financial counselling services. This will help ensure that multicultural communities across Victoria know where and how to access help from agencies and are better prepared to cope in future natural disasters.
