Welcoming Week 2024: 13- 22 September
Through Welcoming Week, organisations and communities bring together neighbours of all backgrounds to build strong connections and affirm the importance of building welcoming and inclusive communities – for our shared future.
Welcoming Week 2024
Welcoming Week is an annual campaign and celebration to showcase the movement of communities striving to be more welcoming places for all, including migrants, refugees, people seeking asylum, international students and the entire community. We acknowledge that Welcoming Week events in Australia will be hosted on the unceded lands of First Nations. We recognise the generosity and important role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the work of Welcoming Australia and Welcoming Week.
Welcoming Week 2024 will take place from September 13 – 22
Register your interest here in hosting a Welcoming Week event.
We are joining a global movement across six countries, hosting over 600 events annually. Welcoming Week 2024 is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the people, places, and values that ensure everyone feels welcome and belongs in the local community, no matter where they come from.
Did you host a Welcoming Week event this year?
We’d love to hear your stories – please fill out this quick survey to let us know about your Welcoming Week experience this year, and importantly what can we do better next year? We’d love to know what resources we can provide to help you engage with Welcoming Week in 2024 – save the date for 13 – 22 September!
Anyone can participate in Welcoming Week.
This year’s theme is #PowerOfPlace
Some key actions partners, members, organisations, and individuals can take this year to celebrate the #PowerOfPlace in advancing welcoming, inclusive communities
- Host an online or in-person event during Welcoming Week, for example:
- Food festival featuring diverse cuisines
- Explore the native ingredients in your area, led by a local Elder
- Organise a welcoming mural – chalk, paint, otherwise!
- Community BBQ or picnic
- Festival or gathering showcasing the diverse musical talent of your community
- Movie screening
- Sports day
- Crafts events
- Community info session
- Multicultural Quiz
- Attend an event near you
- On social media, share welcoming actions your community is taking
- Issue a Welcoming Week Proclamation or Resolution
For more information and ideas, please check out this toolkit
About Welcoming Week
Welcoming Week is an annual campaign and celebration to showcase the movement of communities striving to be more welcoming places for all, including migrants. Launched in 2012 by Welcoming America and its members in the United States, Welcoming Week is now a global movement that brings communities and neighbours of all backgrounds together to build strong connections and affirm the importance of inclusive places.
Core Messages
Welcoming Week is an opportunity to share the work of welcoming places with your community and the media. These talking points can help guide your messaging and outreach.
- Celebrated in hundreds of communities around the globe, Welcoming Week is an annual campaign that connects neighbours of all backgrounds through community-led activities and events.
- Welcoming Week is an actionable, holistic campaign that provides individuals and communities the opportunity to publicly proclaim welcoming values, foster a mutual understanding between First Nations, refugees, migrants, people seeking safety, settlers and everyone calling their community home, and build a deeper sense of belonging for all.
- More people than ever are on the move, displaced by climate and conflict and seeking opportunity and mobility. As this migration reshapes communities, many places are unprepared and underinvested in the work needed to create welcoming infrastructure – and they’re unsure of where to start. Welcoming Week invites communities to take the first step toward creating an environment where everyone can truly belong, contribute and thrive. In many ways, the initiative is an opportunity for communities to cultivate the awareness and energy that’s needed to sustain year-long welcoming efforts.
- We believe that being welcoming is much more than being friendly, tolerant, or peaceful. To be truly welcoming, a community needs intentional, inclusive policies, practices, and norms that enable all residents to live, thrive, and contribute fully. Welcoming Week is one of the tools that can help us achieve this vision. During Welcoming Week, we pursue equity in our community by [specific detail(s) about your Welcoming Week event(s).]
- Welcoming Week poses an opportunity for communities to cultivate the awareness and energy that’s needed to sustain year-long welcoming efforts. In [Location], this looks like [specific detail(s) about your Welcoming Week event(s)].
- Welcoming Week is a time when a chorus of thousands—in communities large and small, rural and urban—celebrate the benefits of an inclusive and welcoming society and deepen their commitment to creating places where everyone can belong, contribute and thrive.
A Welcoming Week to remember!
Thank you for making Welcoming Week 2023 a bright, warm and engaging week of celebrating the #PowerOfPlace in advancing a future where everyone can belong, contribute and thrive.
From Ararat, to Campsie, to Moorooka to Kilburn, to Gwelup, you brought thousands of us together to celebrate Welcoming Week! In only our second year joining this global campaign, we collectively hosted over 50 events and amplified the welcoming message online – thank you for joining us to affirm the importance of building welcoming and inclusive communities. We joined over 600 events across 6 countries; truly part of a global movement for welcoming!
We’ve loved seeing the creativity of your communities coming together in a bold display of welcome, deepening your commitment to creating places where everyone can belong, contribute and thrive.
Thank you for joining us this year!
3 September
- 3.00pm – Multicultural South Australia for the Voice – Parafield Gardens, SA
6 September
- 10.00am – Rolling out the Welcome Mat – Hobart, Tas
- 1.00pm – Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia: Welcoming Week Information Session – online
8 September
- Welcoming Week in Murray Bridge – Murray Bridge, SA
9 September
- 11.00am – Not Your Usual Saturday – Borderton, SA
- 3.00pm – East African Community Social Sports Event – Altona North, Vic
10 September
- 10.00am – Celebrate Welcoming @ Parks Library – Angle Park, SA
- 3.00pm – Sharing voices: belonging, harmony and spirituality – Port Phillip, Vic
- 3.00pm – East African Community Social Sports Event – Altona North, Vic
11 September
- 10.00am – JBS Foods Riverina Special Morning Tea – Yanco, NSW
- 10.30am – Welcoming Week Storytime – Port Adelaide, SA
- 12.00pm – Celebrate Diversity and our Neighbours at Kilburn Community Centre – Kilburn, SA
- 12.30pm – R U OK? – Campsie, NSW
12 September
- 9.00am – St Brigid’s School Community Hub Open Morning – Kilburn, SA
- 10.00am – Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Jobs Expo – Mirrabooka, WA
- 11.00am – Welcoming Week in Ararat – Ararat, Vic
- 3.00pm – Youth Arts & Recreation – Open Access Welcoming Week – Hobart, Tas
13 September
- 9.00am – Welcoming Week Celebration at the St Brendan’s Community Hub – Moorooka, QLD
- 10.30am – Morning Tea with Greenacres English Conversation Group – Greenacres, SA
- 10.30am – Welcoming Week Storytime – Enfield, SA
- 12.30pm – Community Lunch – Thornbury, Vic
- 6.30pm – Welcoming Community Dinner – Kilburn, SA
14 September
- 10.00am – Mooro Cultural Tour – Gwelup, WA
- 10.30am – Multicultural Fashion Parade at Junction Community Centre – Ottoway, SA
- 10.30am – Welcoming Week Storytime – Semaphore, SA
- 11.00am – Morning Tea with English Chat Cafe – Angle Park, SA
- 6.00pm – Undefeated: exploring the migrant experience in Australia – St Kilda, Vic
- 7.30pm – Community Conversation / Language Exchange / English Corner / 英语角 – online
15 September
- 10.00am – Welcome to Revesby/Bunya Tour – Padstow, NSW
- 10.30am – Welcoming Week Storytime – Greenacres, WA
- 5.30pm – Friday Night Lights with One Culture – Blair Athol, SA
- 5.30pm – Welcoming Week in Mt Isa – Pioneer, Queensland
16 September
- 10.00am – Welcoming Week in Gladstone – Gladstone, QLD
- 11.00am – Waverley Volunteer Expo – Bondi Beach, NSW
- 3.00pm – Anniversary of Women, Life, Freedom – Adelaide, SA
17 September
- 9.00am – Living Together – Speers Point, NSW
- 10.30am – Community Conversation / Language Exchange / English Corner / 英语角 – Box Hill, Vic
- 10.30am – Welcoming Week Storytime – Angle Park, SA
- 2.00pm – Community Conversation / Language Exchange / English Corner / 英语角 – Glen Waverley, Vic
- 2.o0pm – Welcoming Week Walk – Port Phillip, Vic
- 4.00pm – Ku-ring-Gai local area community – Killara, NSW
- 5.30pm – City of Stirling Citizenship Ceremony – Stirling, WA
28 September
- 10.00am – All Things Bengali at Lakemba Library – Lakemba, NSW
29 September
- 10.30am – Welcome to Canterbury-Bankstown Picnic – Campsie, NSW
2022 Welcoming Week
For the first time, Australia joined the global Welcoming Week movement – and what a way to join the party!
In cities across Australia; from Port Phillip to Mt Isa to Unley to the Blue Mountains, Welcoming Week brought together local councils, refugee support organisations, community groups and more in a bold display of welcome, deepening their commitment to creating places where everyone can belong, contribute and thrive.
Hundreds of people across over a dozen events hosted around Australia joined a chorus of thousands internationally in a bold display of welcome, solidarity and belonging.
Read more about Australia’s first ever Welcoming Week here
