CALD2LEAD Wins "Allyship" Award
CALD2LEAD was recognised for its allyship and role in empowering culturally & linguistically diverse (CALD) women & their communities at the 2025 Australian Professionals of Multicultural Communities (APOC) Awards & Gala Event.
​
​
A thank you note from “three middle-aged white guys.”
Thank you to our First Nations people for sharing the oldest continuing living culture & over 700 different languages. Your care & connection to sky, land and water is what makes us the lucky Country.
As you can see from these photos, we were incredibly fortunate to be in the room for the 2025 Australian Professionals of Multicultural Communities gala event. The colour, culture & languages so generously shared & celebrated on the night will stay with us forever. Thank you to Vineti Arnand and the whole APOC team for creating such a special space.
We congratulate all nominees & award winners & feel humbled to stand alongside you. As “three middle-aged white guys” we know that it is only those with lived experience, those of you that we work with and for, that can refer to us as allies or not.
Culture, colour & language - these key three pillars shape all of us. From the day we are born they drive the ways we learn, engage, communicate, connect & care for each other. So on behalf of our CALD2LEAD founders – Den, Hugh & Steve – we say thank you to you for sharing your culture, language & colour with us.
Our dream is for organisations such as CALD2LEAD & many more to be led by the voices, wisdom & experiences of the diverse cultures, languages & ideas that shine light & hope into our volatile & uncertain world. We are proud to see that our Board & others are helping making this change. We will not rest until our organisations, our society, & our collective decisions truly reflect the diversity & culture of our communities & this room.
Importantly, we share this award with all those that were not in the room at the APOC gala. Thank you to our scholars & all those that challenge our systemic barriers & lead us forward. Thank you to our partners at Community Directors and Leadership Victoria for delivering such high-quality programs. Thank you also from the bottom of hearts to the tip of our BBQ tongs, to every one of our amazing volunteers and anyone that has ever bought one our humble snags at a Bunnings sausage sizzle to help raise funds. Grass roots fundraising works!!
When Hugh, Dennis & Steve first came together in 2019 to create CALD2LEAD we each separately took the time to reflect on & write our future vision for the organisation in 8 years' time. Penned in a golden coloured notebook. Amazingly, each of us described something very similar in our own unique words. The common dream was imagining ourselves in rooms such as these - but not up the front. Our vision was to be at the back of the room like. Seeing the CALD women we support & empower in front of the communities you lead. Celebrating your culture, your influence & your impact to make our society better.
We are only good allies if we listen to you and act on what we hear. We did & we do. Everyday we pinch ourselves about the amazing people making such a positive difference to our world. We have been floored by the generosity of your stories, your wisdom & your thirst for learning. We are incredibly fortunate to be guided everyday by the inspiration & leadership of each of our scholars, our partners & our mentors.
An extra special shout out to Viv Nguyen – Chair of the Victorian Multicultural Commission – you gave us our true spark when you so generously joined our Board meeting on zoom at the start of COVID. You shone a light on the need & a lightning bolt for our purpose. Your generosity & courage to always give your time & share your story with whoever whenever is a true representation of all the amazing multicultural communities & people you represent.
Finally, Den, Hugh and Steve would also like to dedicate this award to our mothers – Frances, Maggie, and Sue – for bringing us into this world to celebrate culture, language & colour. Whether direct or indirect, whether you realised it or not, you instilled this into us.
To all multicultural women and your communities - please keep celebrating your culture, your language, & your colour. Keep sharing it. Keep growing & using it to make the change you want to see in the world, & please do keep dancing your cultural traditions into every room you enter!
