Working Group for Introductory Stage of RWA Melbourne

Refugees Welcome Australia (RWA) is a volunteer-led homestay movement that connects local residents who have a spare room in their home with people who have sought asylum and need rent-free accommodation for a period of time. Refugees Welcome is active in 16 countries across Europe, North America and, now, Australia.

RWA has been fully operational in Brisbane for 12 months where we currently have 25 people placed in homestays. We are in the launch stage in Sydney and are now creating a small working group of people to guide our introduction to Melbourne.

The working group will
– Act as a sounding board for ideas and actions in the introductory stage of RWA in Melbourne
– Give RWA direct access (i.e. contacts) to smaller asylum seeker support orgs/groups who may wish to work with us
– Create a public profile for RWA Melbourne (social media and maybe events at a later stage)
– Set up the infrastructure of the volunteer program

The above work will be informed by the practices and policies that RWA already has in place in Brisbane.

We are looking for
– One person with experience managing a volunteer program – to review the volunteer practices in place in Brisbane and adapt these to suit our vision for Melbourne.
– One person with communications skills – to develop a profile building action plan for RWA Melbourne.
– One person with contacts in smaller refugee groups/organisations who can work in a more flexible way and might want to partner with us

This working group will be in place for the introductory stage only (planned to occur from April – July 2018) and it is anticipated that people would need to put in around 5hours per week (working from home and meeting up as a group).

If you want to be part of our movement and have the skills, experience and time commitment described in the attached information page we’d like to hear from you.