Thursday, 23 February 2023

Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (09:40): I attended the 40th anniversary of the Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association last Friday on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, John Pesutto. This event celebrated the 40 years that the Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association has been operating and providing a service. The service itself includes youth activities, social supports, nationally recognised training courses, prisoner support, alcohol and drug counselling, gambling counselling and prevention, family violence prevention, NDIS job advocacy and carer support as well as cultural support. The AVWA was founded in 1983 to serve the Vietnamese community by Ms Cam Nguyen and 17 other women. It began to struggle to attract members and had a decrease in funding; it became a huge problem. However, despite this struggle, over the decades it ran it reached over the $1 million mark in 2004 and continues to grow in size. To emphasise this, it now has over 300 employees. In 2019 it reached $12.5 million in revenue, demonstrating the demand and need for such an organisation in this Vietnamese community. I was delighted to attend this great organisation’s celebration, and I support their critical work in the community and champion their success.