In the past four weeks, multiple multicultural and community faith group forums have been held to inform people from Chinese, a variety of South-East Asian language groups (Tamil, Punjabi, Bengali, Sikh), Tagalog, Greek, Arabic, Women only, Buddhist, Hazara, Muslim, Jewish, Assyrian and other backgrounds about the Voice Referendum.
This weekend, ahead of the referendum on October 14, many cultural groups are hosting their own barbecues or other activities to help people understand what the Voice will mean to Indigenous Australia and improving outcomes for indigenous communities.
Market and festival stalls, train station leafleting and phone banking targeting multicultural electorates also continue.
Racial and economic justice organisation Democracy in Colour has been in the western suburbs of Sydney building awareness of how writing YES in the upcoming Referendum can enable long term transformative change and justice for First Nations people.
Jenny Cao spokesperson for Democracy in Colour says, “As people of colour in Australia, we want to show our solidarity with First Nations people by writing YES to a First Nations Voice to Parliament. We know that when people affected by laws and policies have a voice, we get better outcomes.
“We’ve developed a range of information sheets in community languages so that everyone, no matter what their cultural background, can understand how this Referendum can lead to transformative justice for First Nations people. It’s so important to make sure that multicultural communities have resources and information that is available to them in language to counter some of the misinformation that we’ve seen during this Referendum.
“It is because of the tireless advocacy from First Nations people in dismantling the White Australia Policy decades ago, that many of us have been able to migrate to this country and call it home. It’s now time for us to show up and Write YES to the Voice, Yes to Treaty, Yes to Truth telling and Yes to self determination.”
Yes23 campaign resources and information in community languages
Yes23 campaign resources and information in community languages and in English are also freely available.
“Understanding the Referendum in your language” videos and newly uploaded community/faith leader videos explaining why they want to vote Yes to the Voice are here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgLgwxJOcQrDRjERzo2TOY8HsVPczMWzu
Other videos from multicultural community leaders and faith leaders are here:
https://www.multiculturalforvoice.org/why-the-voice
All translated materials (over 40 languages) including fact sheet translations (2 versions) – one with basic FAQs about the referendum and the second with more details about the Voice are here:
https://www.yes23.com.au/translated_materials
Social media/digital resources kit, a Constitutional explainer flyer, a letter to your neighbour template – plus PDFs of flyers and postcards to print for market stalls or to open up conversations are here:
https://www.yes23.com.au/resources
To join with Yes23 actions or find events to join in with, visit these links:
https://www.yes23.com.au/volunteer
https://www.yes23.com.au/local_yes_groups
https://www.yes23.com.au/events
https://www.yes23.com.au/prepoll_nsw
Watch and listen to this video (for less than three minutes!) to understand why we need to vote YES for an enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the video narrated by Thomas Mayo here:
https://vimeo.com/865038266?share=copy
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