What is Digital Refuge?
Digital Refuge is a project that enabled the creation of a range of powerful and direct digital stories by young people from refugee backgrounds in Western Sydney. It is managed by the Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE) organisation.
How it works?
Digital Refuge offered a series of digital storytelling workshops where 38 young people from refugee and migrant communities were provided with introductory training in variety of media including film-making, photography, story boarding and music production. The project was also linked to digital storytelling programs involving Koori young people.
Stories were screened at a series of community events in venues across Western Sydney and aimed to challenge perceptions and create new dialogue as well as give participants an opportunity to share their personal stories, voices and images.
Why it works?
Digital Refuge developed strong partnerships with numerous organisations across Western Sydney including government bodies, educational institutions and correctional services. Some of the participants have committed to further education and plan to participate in similar activities. ICE has also provided these participants access to its Switch facility and equipment and received requests for further screenings. In addition, Digital Refuge has brought together young refugees from different cultural backgrounds which has led to new friendships and plans for future creative collaborations.
Where the funding was sourced
Funding was sourced from the Jack Dunlop subfund of the Sydney Community Foundation. The donor who established this subfund is keen to support refugees and migrants living in Sydney and asked the SCF to identify an organisation delivering services to people in this group.
The result
Digital Refuge affected over 11,000 people. These included the young refugees directly involved and their mentors and role models, team members, artists, cultural leaders, community workshop participants and the attendees of the community screening events.
www.ice.org.au