Project Dates: October 2018 – March 2020
Project Partners: JobWatch and Goulbourn Valley Community Legal Centre
Project Funding: Victorian Legal Aid via Industrial Relations Victoria
Our role within the TWVP was to help temporary work visa holders in the Barwon South West region to better understand their work rights. During the project, legal education and advice were offered to working holiday makers and international students in the region.
A marketing campaign was conducted to encourage temporary work visa holders to speak up and seek legal advice about their work conditions. The campaign included community billboards, mail outs to accommodation providers, a dedicated facebook page and a television commercial was created and aired on Channel 31 during December 2019 – January 2020.
You can read more about the outcomes of this project here:
For more information about this project please contact Sharon in the community team.
Project Dates: 2019
Project Partners: Geelong Illustrators
Project Funding: Victoria Law Foundation and City of Greater Geelong
‘Portraits of Justice’ was an innovative community legal education and art project to help young people in Geelong understand legal issues and the free local services that can help them.
Working with local artists’ collective, Geelong Illustrators, young people from a diverse range of backgrounds were supported to create a portrait of a local person who provides services for young people within the justice system. Portraits were created during live sittings, through a discussion about what ‘justice’ means to young people today, and what legal services and solutions are available in the local area.
The portraits were showcased in an exhibition at the Geelong Library & Heritage Centre and have been included in the legal help referral booklet that has been created for young people.
For more information about this project contact Shane Foyster in our legal team.
Project Dates: Stage 1: 2016-2017
Project Partners: Bellarine for Refugees, Refugee Legal and BCLS
Project Funding: Grant from R.E. Ross Trust and Crowdfunding Campaign
The Seeking Refuge Project (SRP) was established to help Asylum Seekers who arrived by boat between 13 August 2012 and 1 January 2014 to apply for a Protection Visa and navigate the complex ‘Fast Track’ assessment process.
70 volunteers were recruited and helped 76 Asylum Seekers to complete their Protection Visa applications. In addition more than $80,000 was raised via a crowdfunding campaign to enable the SRP to employ professional interpreters to ensure that Asylum Seekers and volunteers could understand each other.
At the conclusion of Stage 1 of the project, we had received advice from 11 clients that they had been successful in obtaining protection visas. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection is continuing the process of assessing the remaining applications.
You can read more about the Seeking Refugee Project here.
For more information about this project contact Mandi in our legal team.
In 2020 we received funding from the Victoria Law Foundation (VLF) as part of its Knowledge Grant funding stream for our Knowledge Building Project examining civil law needs of older people in our region.
The purpose of the Knowledge Grants is to support community legal organisations to better understand their data and use it to respond to community need.
Our project partnered with Deakin University and established a partnership with Deakin’s Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Program to embed virtual student research interns within our service to assist with the collection and interpretation of data.
Our research project aimed to:
The project also built an evidence-based framework for the collection, interpretation and application of available data, which we hope will result in an ongoing collaboration with Deakin to build our research and data capacity across other areas of legal practice.
In May 2022 we launched our research report capturing our findings and recommendations.
You can access the Summary Report and Full Report below:
Real Life Research in Partnership – Understanding Civil Law Needs of Older People – Summary Report
Real Life Research in Partnership – Understanding Civil Law Needs of Older People – Full Report
For more information about this project please contact the community team.
The SAFEStreets project is a partnership with the fOrT Youth Centre and aims to create a place-based community education campaign that is designed by young people living in the City of Greater Geelong for young people.
The project was established in March 2020 to work with young people and key local stakeholders to co-design an education and awareness campaign aimed at improving their understanding of the Victorian justice system and their legal rights and responsibilities.
A key focus of the project is establishing consistent messaging around key legal topics and developing creative and engaging community safety education resources that can be used across the region.
SAFEStreets established a reference group which oversaw the project planning and implementation and included representatives from the City of Greater Geelong’s fOrT Youth Centre, Victoria Legal Aid, Barwon Adolescent TaskForce, Barwon Child Youth and Family and Victoria Police.
We would like to acknowledge the support of the Department of Justice and Community Safety who have funded this project as part of their Community Safety Fund.
Last modified on July 19th, 2023 at 3:35 pm
The content on this site is information only and is not legal advice. If you need legal advice please contact us.