By the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland. 

In a global context, recent events around the world and at home necessitate an open public debate on multiculturalism and to form effective strategies for community engagement with this issue. Oft times, even within the Community Services Sector, many organisations are increasingly regarding ‘multiculturalism' as being solely related to issues regarding non-English speaking migrants and refugees. This interpretation and use of ‘multiculturalism' not only denies the role of English speaking migrants, residents and citizens, but also fails to acknowledge the important contributions that Indigenous peoples play in the construction of effective multiculturalism. Indeed, alienating English speakers and Indigenous peoples by denying them a place within concepts of multiculturalism, may serve instead to reinforce the ‘us and them' mentality amongst some members of the wider community, in which the somewhat ignorant ideologies of assimilation and total conformity to mainstream ‘Anglo' culture is a goal.

By YANQ and CAIR (Coalition Against Inappropriate Remand) - CAIR is a coalition of community-based youth, legal, educational and social justice organisations working together to abolish inappropriate remand in custody of young people in Queensland.

74% of the young people in custody in Queensland Youth Detention Centres on 30 June 2006 were on remand - the outcome of a dramatic upward trend over recent years.

Inappropriately detaining young people in custody puts community safety at risk. Many young people only ever commit a single, minor, juvenile offence, yet evidence suggests that many first-time alleged offenders are remanded in custody. Most children on remand in Youth Detention Centres in Queensland are charged with minor, non-violent offences. Repeated studies have shown that the younger a child is detained in custody, the greater the likelihood that they will re-offend as a juvenile and end up in prison as an adult. Detaining a young person increases their likelihood of future incarceration, and therefore diminishes the chance that they will become a productive citizen. There is substantial evidence to indicate that detaining young people increases both short and long term risks to public safety.

By Kirsten McGavin 

In late February, in my capacity as YANQ's Multicultural Development Officer, I attended a meeting of the State-wide Multicultural Youth Issues Network (SMYIN) in Victoria; a meeting focused on "Being ‘In-between': Projects Engaging Second Generation Young People". Organised by the Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI) - an organisation with which YANQ works closely as part of the National Multicultural Youth Issues Network (NMYIN) - the meeting was a follow up to a recent two-day symposium on a similar topic that was held in association with Deakin University.

At the "Being ‘In-between'" assembly, delegates explored and discussed the idea that "Australian-born young people whose parents or grandparents were born overseas can find themselves straddling the orientations of different cultural identities" (CMYI brochure). We also examined a selection of initiatives that assist "second generation young people in positively experiencing and expressing their identities" (CMYI brochure).

Speakers from CMYI, Swinburne University of Technology, Noble Park English Language School and the Islamic Social Services Agency joined representatives of various youth based, project managing organisations including: The Australian Vietnamese Women's Welfare Association (Young Women's Soccer competition), fuSIAN (Polynesian Hip Hop Dance Alliance and Urban Aftershock projects), the Victorian Arabic Social Services (Anti Racism Action Band), and Australian Lebanese Welfare Inc.