The Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) of the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VMC) were announced at the multicultural media conference on Tuesday.
The eight RAC’s, chaired by the VMC commissioner, will be the voice of regional communities of Victoria and are made up of local residents, representatives from community organisations and multicultural providers.
At the conference, Chin Tan, the chairman of the VMC said the RAC’s would act as the “eyes and ears” of the VMC and would report back the issues pertaining to multiculturalism in their regional communities.
There will be three Melbourne based and five regional councils located in: southern metropolitan; eastern metropolitan; north and west metropolitan; Loddon Malee; Grampians; Barwon south west; Hume; and Gippsland.
Six Greek Australians have been selected to represent their regions in the various Regional Advisory Councils and they are: Tina Stathopoulos, service provider representative; Theo Zographos, local resident; Nicholas Tragas, local government representative all from the eastern metropolitan region: Theodosa Kanellopoulos, local resident for the Gippsland region: Mary Lalios, local government representative from the north and west metropolitan: and Penny Pavlou, local government representative from the southern metropolitan region.