Since commencement, the AAF has through its grant making activities:

• Provided a grant to Museums Victoria’s Learning Access Fund. This grant will enable over 500 students from schools in low socio economic status areas to access the Immigration Museum and participate in its educational programs focusing on migration, identity, citizenship, and community, in alignment with key areas of the Victorian Curriculum for years 3-6.  AAF is proud to support Museums Victoria, custodians of some of Victoria’s most significant cultural institutions. Through this grant, we aim to inspire the next generation of young Australians, giving them the opportunity to engage with themes that shape our society.

  This initiative aligns with AAF’s core mission to Give Voice, Inspire Change – empowering young minds to explore the stories that define Australia’s rich cultural landscape.

• Provided a grant to Worawa Aboriginal College to support the establishment of a:

  • music program for the students at Worawa. The grant will enable Worawa to enhance the music program on offer, by providing instruments that are of recording studio standard, and expanding the number of instruments available to students across all aspects of musical production.  The purchase of these instruments continues the philosophy of ‘learning by doing’ and will give students access to high quality instruments to create and perform music.

  • Production Studio that will provide the opportunity for students to develop skills in photography, filmmaking, recording, sound production and mixing. This will also contribute to the preservation and expression of cultural identity, stories and history of the Aboriginal community.

• Provided scholarships to students from culturally diverse backgrounds at Swinburne University facing some form of financial hardship or personal disadvantage.

• Provided financial support to students in need of food and shelter arising from the impact of COVID 19 through a grant to the Swinburne University Student Emergency Fund.

• Grant to Doncaster Community Care and Counselling Centre Inc. (DONCARE) to support the cost of employing a professionally qualified Counselling Supervisor for an additional day per week for a period of 12 months to support those in the community requiring mental health support during COVID times.

• Supported the establishment of a Soup Kitchen in Preston through a grant made to 300 blankets (www.300blankets.org.au).

• Enabled ten scholarships to bright young students in the Western suburbs of Melbourne (many of whom are of Asian heritage) facing difficult and disadvantaged circumstances. This support has enabled and given each of the recipients hope for their future in education and employment through our partnership with Western Chances. (www.westernchances.org.au)

• Spearheaded and supported through multiple grants a project to raise awareness of perinatal anxiety and depression amongst the Asian Australian community through our partnership and support of PANDA - Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia (www.panda.org.au) which supports women, men and families across Australia to recover from post and antenatal depression and anxiety, a serious illness that affects around 100,000 Australian families every year.

• Enabled the delivery of 110 counselling sessions to approximately 20 children experiencing or impacted by family violence, supported the development of a Resilient Kids Positive Future Program and supported counselling for families including arising from the impact of COVID 19 through multiple grants to DONCARE (www.doncare.org.au).

• Enabled delivery of education sessions to 4 schools reaching up to 750 participants in each school to assist address bullying and supported the development of a Schools Bullying Prevention program through multiple grants to BullyZero Australia Foundation (www.bullyzero.org.au).

• Enabled Anxiety Recovery Centre Victoria, a state-wide, specialist mental health organisation, to provide support, recovery and educational services to people and families living with anxiety disorders. The grant was used to fund multilingual eduction and workshops on mental health. For details on their work, see http://www.arcvic.com.au

• Enabled First Step a multi-disciplinary, not-for-profit medical clinic in St Kilda to assists patients overcome dependence on drugs or alcohol including mental health issues arising from such dependence. A number of these patients are from the Vietnamese community and the grant went towards part funding of a resource to assist patients. For details of their work, see http://www.firststep.org.au