AMES will feature prominently at the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA) 2013 conference, to be held on the 7th and 8th of November in Queensland.

AMES CEO Cath Scarth is presenting a keynote address entitled ‘Barriers to employment’ examining the challenges and potential solutions to comparatively high levels of unemployment among CALD communities and among new arrivals to Australia.

Research Officer Monica O’Dwyer will present to the conference results of a review of AMES Skilled Professional Migrants Program (SPMP).

Titled ‘Securing futures: making the most of migrants’ skills’, the study outlines strategies to help newly arrived professional migrants into jobs appropriate to their skills.

FECCA is the pre-eminent Australian multicultural conference and is expected to attract hundreds of delegates from the community, government and private sectors.

This year’s conference theme is: “Breaking down the barriers: A strength-based approach for a just society”. It seeks to identify the barriers currently facing members of culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Australia, and to work towards developing a solid national agenda to address these barriers.