Co-manager of the Melbourne Multicultural Hub, Maria Tsopanis says she has always been in and out of working with migrants throughout her career. Ms Tsopanis’ first job out of university was with the youth service in Thebarton: a traditionally Greek and Italian inner city suburb in Adelaide, where she worked finding employment for young people.

The Adelaide born, Melbourne dweller, whose family hails from Kastellorizo, south of Rhodes, said as a young person she was acutely aware of her parents as migrant workers and that the collective work ethic and values of that generation were passed onto the next. “We always were taught about social values within the family so I suppose in some ways that sense of social justice was there from my family,” she said, adding that the Greek community and migrants place a great emphasis on education. “My father and mother always encouraged me to go to university; that was a given,” she said.

Having worked with Adult Migrant Education Service (AMES) -who manage the multicultural hub in a partnership with the city of Melbourne- for ten years now, Ms Tsopanis has been involved in a range of programs aimed at a number of target groups, from older migrants living in Melbourne -mainly Greeks and Italians- newly arrived migrant refugees, indigenous groups, and international students.

Ms Tsopanis, who was awarded the SACS Award for Leadership in the State Government Sector in July, said the multicultural hub is basically a community centre, which has a number of rooms and facilities available that people can hire independently. The hub also runs programs, from English conversational classes and language classes, which are free of charge and open to anybody. “We also run a job club, looking at things to assist people to get into the labor market, like resume writing and application letters, which to our surprise attracted quite a number of skilled migrants who are new in the country and trying to find their feet,” she said.

Ms Tsopanis said job searching remains an ongoing challenge for new immigrants. “I think initially people come to the country buoyed with confidence and enthusiasm and then they realise that in fact like any job market networks are a very important aspect of getting work and without those local connections it proves hard,” she said, adding that employers want people with local, Australian experience. Cultural differences can make the job seeking process daunting, she said. “The whole notion of interviews is a very difficult one for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, particularly Asian cultures where self marketing and that notion is not really a concept that they’re familiar with,” she said.

Ms Tsopanis said the hub is always looking to diversify and is currently trying to get a yoga class up and running, as well as using the kitchen for potential cooking classes. “We’ve got a commercial kitchen and we’re hoping in the future -and this is where I’d like to target the Greek community- to look at issues around food and heart in terms of healthy eating and given the high incidence of heart attacks among older Greek citizens, it’s an issue that we probably need to be a bit more conscious about,” she said.

With her extensive experience working with migrants, Ms Tsopanis said she has observed progress in Australia as a multicultural society but there remains hurdles for newer migrants. “I definitely think we have progressed but I think each new wave of migrants face their own challenges and their own complex with the next generation, it’s always the same issues that young people face as being young Australians when their parents are from a different culture; I think that’s something that migrants will always face,” she said.

Ms Tsopanis said “new” migrants still face racial vilification, which she said was evident in the fatal stabbing of Indian student Nitin Garg, who was killed in Melbourne earlier this year. “Certainly when I was growing up I think we all faced a degree of discrimination and name calling, but not so much now for this generation of Greek-Australians,” she said. “I think there’s a great pride now, you talk about being a Greek-Australian, and I think we spoke about it with pride back then but in perhaps more hostile terms.”

“I suppose with our Greek community we’ve progressed and become well and truly entrenched within mainstream Australia, and those issues of cross cultural conflict, they may be minor things but really they don’t exist as much as when I was growing up,” she said.