ARARAT has been selected to participate in a pilot program aimed at bringing a number of refugee families to the region to help fill job vacancies.<\/p>\n
Regional Development Minister Mary-Anne Thomas visited the new Green Hill Lake housing estate on Friday to announce a $650,000 partnership between Ararat Rural City Council and the Wyndham Community and Education Centre to support Burmese migrants in Ararat by connecting them with community services, housing, and local employers.<\/p>\n
Ararat is one of four sites across the state to benefit from the pilots, designed to test solutions to workforce shortages that threaten economic recovery and growth.<\/p>\n
Part of the funding has been used to create a role at council for a coordinator to provide local support for the resettlement of Karen people in Ararat.<\/p>\n
The Karen people come from the hills bordering the eastern mountain region of Myanmar, formerly Burma.<\/p>\n
Ms Thomas said the pilot will hopefully lead to more skilled migrants coming to the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunities like Ararat are extremely welcoming and our government wants to embrace recently arrived migrants and those who have lived in the city for a long time to come and work and live in regional Victoria,\u201d Minister Thomas said.<\/p>\n
The first five Karan families are due to arrive in Ararat in August.<\/p>\n
Mayor Jo Armstrong said the pilot was an exciting opportunity to bring new people to Ararat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got the jobs, we just need the people and this is going to be an inspirational project for other regional and rural cities,\u201d Cr Armstrong said.<\/p>\n
The pilot also supports other existing government investments designed to create more jobs and attract more workers to the region, including the Opportunities Pyrenees, Ararat and Northern Grampians (OPAN) project.<\/p>\n
Ms Thomas also used her visit to visit the Ararat East Development Zone to view works underway.<\/p>\n
The Ararat East Development Zone will create homes for up to 317 people.<\/p>\n
Minister Thomas said a lack of housing is a key driver of shortages, with Ararat rental vacancies falling from 1.5 per cent in March 2020 to 0.3 per cent in February this year.<\/p>\n
The Government has provided $950,000 towards the project which is set to support 134 jobs during the construction phase. Ararat Rural City Council has also contributed $300,000 to the project.<\/p>\n
The project has also been supported by $550,000 funding through the Central Highlands Regional Partnership, which involves mapping existing and future housing and skills shortages to support business needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that workforce and housing shortages are a real issue in Ararat \u2013 which is why we are investing in a range of initiatives while supporting migrant workers to settle in town,\u201d Ms Thomas said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ARARAT has been selected to participate in a pilot program aimed at bringing a number of refugee families to the region to help fill job vacancies.
\nRegional Development Minister Mary-Anne Thomas visited the new Green Hill Lake housing estate on Friday to announce a $650,000 partnership between Ararat Rural City Council and the Wyndham Community and Education Centre to support Burmese migrants in Ararat by connecting them with community services, housing, and local employers.
\nArarat is one of four sites across the state to benefit from the pilots, designed to test solutions to workforce shortages that threaten economic recovery and growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/IMG_7481-2-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-fh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}