Australia-ASEAN Council grant recipients, 2015-16

The ‘Disaster Resilience Education Capacity Building in South-East Asia’ project will draw upon the University of Newcastle’s particular position as a centre for resilience education excellence in order to build capacity in the ASEAN region, leveraging the recent partnership with the United Nations that established a Centre for Disaster Risk Reduction and made Newcastle a UN City. The project will further our understanding of regional challenges that result from complex problems generated by natural hazards and human induced threats. The overarching aim of the project will be to create regional synergies between leading higher education institutions while building capacity in ASEAN countries to proactively address disaster risk and build resilience through education. 

The University of Newcastle (Australia), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT, Thailand), the University of the Philippines (UP) and the National University of Civil Engineering (NUCE, Vietnam) will form a robust regional network with the collective capacity to lead initiatives that protect society from shocks to physical, socio-cultural, politico-economic and natural systems. Each institution brings unique disciplinary expertise in Architecture and Construction Management (UON), Urban and Regional Planning (UP) and Civil/Environmental Engineering (USM, NUCE and AIT).

This project aims to increase the leadership capacity of women in sport. The outcome will be a driving force to empower women as leaders in sport. In particular, the project will be known for its innovation, adaptation and delivery of coach, judge and board/governance gymnastic courses and mentoring.

Key aspects of the project include:

1) Governance tool kit and associated workshops. Established in conjunction with the Australian Sport   Commission, Gymnastics Australia and input from South East Asian (SEA) Gymnastics Zone.

2) Creation of online officiating modules to complement the workshops.

3) Innovative mentoring system targeted to women in gymnastics in the nominated SEA regions.

4) Evaluation by Victoria University of the workshops, modules and mentoring system to assist with their long-term sustainability.

A bilateral relationship between Australia and countries in South East Asia does not yet exist in gymnastics. A relationship between Australia and South East Asia is vital to enable the transfer of knowledge and the delivery of best practice governance in gymnastics, while developing and mentoring women as leaders in sport. While only three countries are being targeted, the project will leave a blueprint which could be implemented throughout the entire region.

Arts Centre Melbourne will commission four new innovative works from the ASEAN region; collaborating with artists from Thailand, The Philippines, Indonesia and other South-East Asian countries. 

Commissioning new works provides opportunity for ASEAN artists, creative professionals and communities to respond to and interpret the contemporary traditions of the region and encourages artists to explore new ways of reaching out to Australian audiences through international partnerships.

Each new work will receive its premiere during Asia TOPA, a festival-like Asian programming initiative spearheaded by Arts Centre Melbourne and a consortium of thirteen partner institutions that will see contemporary performing arts from Asia presented in Melbourne across the summer of 2017.

Programming will reflect the contemporary imagination of artists from the entire Asia-Pacific region including the subcontinent, North Asia, East Asia, ASEAN and the Pacific Islands. It will embrace the diverse gamut of performing and live arts, visual arts, cinema and animation, gaming and online cultures, public broadcasts and talks as well as celebrations of food, fashion, design, and our place in the natural world.

Seven key artists from South-East Asia will be included in the 20th Biennale of Sydney titled ‘The Future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed’ and curated by Dr Stephanie Rosenthal. Korakrit Arunanondchai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (both from Thailand), Heman Chong, Charles Lim, Ming Wong and Robert Zhao Renhui (Singapore), and Rodel Tapaya (Philippines) will exhibit in 2016. Each of these artists, with the exception of Ming Wong, will create new works for the exhibition, which will be open Friday, 18 March – Sunday, 5 June 2016 across Sydney museum and non-museum venues. 

The Biennale of Sydney is a non-profit organisation that presents Australia’s largest contemporary visual arts festival. Held every two years, the Biennale is a three-month exhibition, open for free to the public, with accompanying public engagement and education programs, as well as publications and digital content. The Biennale is the largest and longest-running event of its type in our region and was the first to focus on Asian contemporary art in the 1973 and 1976 editions.

The Australian Centre for Financial Studies has initiated a long-term research project that will assess the implications of Asia’s rise for Australia’s financial services industry, as well as for the underlying payments, trade and capital flows that enable the smooth functioning of economic activity. The integration in the Asia-Pacific project will analyse the prospects for deeper integration of financial services and financial markets and evaluate what this could mean for the financial ecosystems of Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

The Asia-Pacific region is among the most financially restrictive and fragmented in the world, and this fragmentation has significant negative consequences for consumers and businesses. The project aims to bring forward evidence to enable a dialogue around the true benefits and costs of financial integration. It will provide Australian and Asian industry practitioners, policymakers and other stakeholders with the data and research necessary to enhance long-term strategic planning and decision-making. The plan is for the project to be conducted over three years, with deliverables on roughly a 6-monthly basis.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce Laos (Austcham Lao) is an active business chamber that has been operating in Lao for the last ten years. Austcham promotes linkages between Australian, Laos and International businesses and facilitates private sector dialogue with the Lao Government.

Gender equality in the workplace is important not only in Laos but throughout the world. Women need the opportunity to be leaders in the workplace. Bringing together female leaders from the private, development and government sectors, Austcham Lao will establish a Women in Leadership Working Group (WILWG) which will be an ongoing initiative of the chamber.

In 2016 the WILWG will champion a one day women in leadership conference. The conference will have a variety of speakers, workshops, case studies and will be the platform for the development of a declaration on women in leadership in the Lao PDR.

Australian business will be at the forefront of the conference and through Austcham Lao will be encouraged to engage with the WILWG in the planning of the conference. With Lao PDR hosting ASEAN in 2016 this is a great opportunity to showcase the involvement of Austcham Lao in the enhancement of equality in the workplace to the international community.

Commissioning of new work from 20 Australian and Philippine writers, including playwrights, poets, prose writers and essayists reflecting on the relationship between our two countries. Writers will be chosen based on the quality of their work and their interest in the relationship between the Philippines and Australia. 

The work will be published by Mosman Art Gallery in collaboration/partnership with University of Western Sydney and the University of the Philippines. The publication would be timed to coincide with a coordinated series of Philippine themed art projects taking place in 2016-2017 in Australia. Core partners in this series of art projects include the Art Gallery of NSW, the Australian Museum, Blacktown Arts Centre, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Auburn City Council (Peacock Gallery/Auburn Artists Studio), Museums and Galleries NSW, the Philippines Consulate General (Sydney), VisAsia and Mosman Art Gallery.

The publication will increase awareness and engagement between the Australian and Philippine peoples, highlighting a major art form shared between the two communities.

The project will generate significant publicity, timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Australia and the Philippines and the associated celebrations.

Within the ASEAN region, where football is already the most popular sport, there has been continued growth in the popularity of women’s football. 

Football Associations are employing women to act as football administrators to oversee that growth. However, lack of resources for the women’s game hinders women from developing the skills they need to create the best football environment possible for women in ASEAN.

With the support of the Australia-ASEAN Council, FFA will take a leadership role to address this by establishing an administrative and coaching development exchange, where female football administrators and coaches travel to Australia to receive skills training and undertake work experience.

The two week program will see female football administrators from the ASEAN region benefit from work experience in a number of different departments within Football Federation Australia, giving them experience with managing women’s football at national/grassroots level.

In addition, female ASEAN coaches would shadow a W-League team or FFA’s Women’s National Team Department to experience coaching practices in an elite environment.

Participants would be working with experienced Australian female football administrators, who would act as ongoing mentors and establish an enduring relationship borne of a highly positive experience in Australia.

Given the increased focus on the social and economic imperatives for women in leadership, Asialink will partner with the ABC’s Australia Plus to produce a series of six interviews with successful women leaders in Australia and South-East Asia.

Phase one of this project convened participants from across the region at the 2015 Asialink Conversations to identify the different cultural, religious, systemic and structural factors for women in leadership and discussed innovative ways to effect change in their home countries.

Building on the key findings from the 2015 Conversations, this project will explore the challenges for women leaders in Australia and Southeast Asia, telling the stories of emerging and established leaders will provide role models for younger women and coping strategies from women who have overcome gender discrimination. The project will present an image of Australia as a progressive country in relation to the advancement of women in leadership, but also a country ready to learn from South-East Asia. It will create a stronger understanding of the issues related to women in leadership and wider cultural awareness of South-East Asia.

The Australian Thai Youth Ambassadors Program is a four week program for Australian university students to volunteer their skills in Northeast Thailand and gain a deeper understanding of the Thai culture, traditions and its people. The core focus of the program is teaching underprivileged students English through a range of English activities including phonetics, pronunciation and fun games. The program also teaches Thai students about Australian flora and fauna as well as singing songs. 

The program also enables participants to develop their leadership and networking skills through a range of events including diplomatic visits to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Australian Embassy.

The National Museum of Australia (NMA) and the National Heritage Board of Singapore signed a MOU in July 2015 to enable the NMA and the National Museum of Singapore (NMS) to collaborate on a range of projects. Over the course of the next five years, this MOU provides opportunities to work together on a range of public and education programs, publications and exhibitions that will contribute to greater understanding between our countries. It also supports the broader country to country MOU signed by Singapore and Australia in 2015.

This grant will deliver the following: curatorial research and discussion towards a project proposal for a potential exhibition in 2018-19, two content and program workshops and an international lecture and launch of the program with related events such as a country to country link up to coincide with a proposed visit of the Prime Minister of Singapore in 2016. This first year program of activities will further advance and consolidate our commitment for the NMA and NMS to work together on projects from 2017 onwards.