About the New Hope Foundation

The New Hope Foundation is a non-profit public benevolent organisation, which was set up by the Founding Chairperson of the South Central Migrant Resource Centre, Mr Frank Crean (former Federal Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia) in partnership with ethnic communities in October 1997.  It is an independently incorporated association under the Victorian Associations Incorporation Act 1981.

The New Hope Foundation aims to assist newly arrived refugee and humanitarian entrants who are living in poverty across Victoria through a range of state wide services including the Settlement Grants Programme and the New Hope Employment and Training Services based in Oakleigh & Footscray and the Refugee Resource Centres based in Footscray and Werribee.

Services currently provided by the New Hope Foundation include:

• Employment and Training Services – delivering the Personal Support Program (PSP) to assist long term unemployed people with multiple non-vocational barriers to re-enter the workforce and assisting recently arrived refugees to gain employment through the WPP Program.

• Other activities– providing of a range of programs and activities responding to the specific needs of newly arrived refugees with targeted initiatives including the following initiatives undertaken in the past 12 months:

  • Assisting entrants across Melbourne with child safety training and specific material support in the form of appropriate car restraints for children and fire blankets.
  • Raising money to provide new mothers with an ‘infant essentials’ pack.
  • Running a Sudanese Women’s Leadership Training Project where refugee women have been mentored and provided ongoing training and support to develop their leadership skills and enhance their community’s capacity to advocate on their own behalf; and to plan and deliver a range of community activities such as a women and children’s camp. This project has now evolved into the South Sudanese Women’s Network.
  • Supporting the South Sudanese Women’s Network which is a self-help women’s capacity building project that targets Sudanese women who are members of a disadvantaged new and emerging community.
  • The “MAD about Music” program bringing together school children from Caulfield Grammar College and the South Sudanese community to share in the experience of making music and forming new friendships.
  • Running several successful community appeals and fund raising events with all proceeds directly benefiting refugees, including a successful Christmas gift drive with Mentone Girls Grammar School and the St Peter’s Early Learning Centre in Toorak, as well as our Tea for Hope and Kidz 4 Hope fundraising events.

New Hope Foundation
Head Office,
40 Grattan Street Prahran, 3181.
Phone: 61 3 9510 5877 Fax: 61 3 9510 8971
Email: newhope@newhope.asn.au