Money to pilot resettlement plan

Agroup representing Ararat, Northern Grampians and Pyrenees municipal councils has $536,756 in funding to help pilot a national model to link refugees and migrants to regional settlement opportunities.

Central Grampians Services is partnering in AMES Australia’s ‘A Bridge to Regional Employment Opportunities’.

The scheme is one of 39 trial projects the Federal Government is backing with an overall $48.5-million funding

package to create tailored pathways to help people find work.

Central Grampians Service is accessing funding through the Federal Government Try, Test and Learn Tranche 2 program.

The objective of the project is to pilot a model for the resettlement of refugees and migrants living in Melbourne into regional areas, and to link them with regional employment opportunities.

As well as employment, the model will be designed to help and connect resettled families to support services they might need. These include English-language programs, appropriate housing, transport, access to education, childcare, health services and community support.

Opportunities

The project will represent a pilot model for secondary resettlement in regional areas ‘that is sustainable and family-focused and will build resources in the host communities that develop ongoing capacity to attract and retain new settlers’.

Northern Grampians Shire Council mayor Kevin Erwin said it was pleasing that AMES Australia, previously known as Adult Multicultural Education Services, had received the government funding.

“Central Grampians Services has been working very closely with AMES Australia to drive more people to our greater region to take up these employment opportunities,” he said.

Central Grampians Services is also providing an Opportunities Pyrenees Ararat Northern Grampians, OPAN, project, which aims to fill workforce shortages within the region by attracting job seekers from Melbourne.

OPAN will also try to address housing, transport and workforce planning issues in the region.

Community leaders in municipalities fringing the Grampians are planning for a potentially significant rise in population on the back of development programs during the next decade.

Northern Grampians Shire Council figures suggest Stawell district population might grow by 1000 in the next five years while Ararat council is busy working to exploit renewable-energy development opportunities.