The West End Network is a group of local community development minded people who are involved with people pushed to the margins and seeking to empower them in any way we can. 

We work with unemployed refugee men and women and long term unemployed refugee youths who are looking for gainful employment, creating job options through social ventures.   

These are collaborative ventures, done in consultation with the refugees, local businesses, the Government and Non-Government Organizations.

We put a lot of emphasis on educating the broader community about the issues facing refugees; particularly the difficulties they face in finding meaningful well paid work because of the racism which is often a barrier to their pathway of development. We not only help people acknowledge these problems, we also help people overcome these problems by providing work solutions through social ventures which assist refugees in becoming more  integrated and more involved in the broader community

We would love others to join our network and to contribute to our work. You can do this simply by sharing your time, friendship, finances and skills with us and the refugees we work with in establishing our social ventures.

Our employment initatives are growing and have overflowed into varying and diverse income generating social ventures. Some of our social ventures are:

The West End Refugee Support Group

The West End Refugee Support Group has helped start many social ventures over the years. Often these ventures have focused on the needs of refugee women, many of them war widows, with families - often large families- to support. The only jobs these  women typically get are as cleaners in offices or packers at the meatworks. Home based cottage industries provide these women with pleasant work at home where they can still keep an eye on their children. Our latest project is to sew sheet sets for child care centres and pre-school centres; chair bags, library bags and swimming bags for primary schools; and aprons for home ecomonics, hospitality chemistry at secondary shools. All of the products are carefully produced and quality controlled.

Ethical Property Management

Ethical Propert Management - or EPM as it is known - offers effective, inexpensive environmentally appropriate  pest control services for homes, schools, churches,  businesses, community groups and government departments. This venture is now actually run with refugees for employment specifically of refugee men.

Black Star Coffee

Black Star Coffee is a social venture based on fair traded organic coffee from poor farmers who recieve their money directly for their labour and products. Black Star Coffee provides young refugees and other longterm umployed youth with training in  the fair trade coffee business and with employment as baristas. Black Star Coffee also promotes the opportunities for fair trade social ventures in the business community.

Black Star Soccer

Black Star Soccer has been established to include and develop the skills of young refugee males. Black Star Coffee sponsors Black Star Soccer - purchasing the uniforms and providing the equipment for the club. A director of the coffee business manages, and - when not injured - occasionally plays in the football team himself. The first year Black Star played they managed to make it to the final. So the pride in team in the esteem of the players is sky high. 

 

MultiCultural Hip Hop Worker

One of the star Black Star players is a multicultural worker who has developed creative hip-hop workshops which he runs with young refugees. In these workshops he helps young refugees - and other disadvantaged young people - deal with the anger they feel about the gruesome realities they have left behind them and the terrible reality of discrimination that they are forced to confront every day. You can book Luke - Luke Haralampou - to run his creative hip-hop workshops with young people as a positive way to help them with anger management and noviolent conflict resolution.

Last First Networks

Last First is an educational arm of these ventures. It distributes resources to inform our practise and encourage others to join us or to develop their own ventures in their own communities. The resources cover all aspects of community development.

1. Resources for primary school students on local and global citizenship.

We would like to see young children in schools have access to these brillaint materials that can help them learn how to share with others, how to support kids around the world who are struggling, how to work for change and how to save the planet.

2. Resources for secondary school students on local and global campaigns

We would like to see high school students be informed through these excellent materials as to how they can to take responsibility for themselves, make life choices that help them to be socially conscious citizens and campaign for effective anger management, peacful conflict resolution and Mak(ing) Poverty History

3. Resources for one world travellers, researchers, activists and practitioners.

We see the power of informed transformative practise and would like others to experience it as well. So we distribute world class materials on the political economy of globalisation, movements committed to sustainability, peace and justice, leadership, advocacy, aid and development from New Society, Kumarian, Oxfam, Tafina and others. We supply books to Australian universities, local groups and global agencies.

One World Craft (Including Jewelry)

One World Craft is a local venture which is based on fair trade practices and linked to villages overseas. It seeks to generates work for refugees and an income stream that goes back to craftsmen and women in the third world directly.