Victorian Arabic Social Services

Establishing peace within communities While talking about social justice and the things that make everyone equal is important, actively seeking out change and guiding the development of grass- roots individuals into leaders is even more crucial. Leila Alloush is one of the people who has dedicated her life in helping others and showing the world that positive change can only occur through cooperation and hard work. When Leila migrated from Lebanon to Australia almost 35 years ago she encountered many difficulties, both ex- pected and unexpected. For one, she was lacking English language skills and had to learn everything from scratch. Her migration and settlement process- es was challenging. Transitioning back then was very stressful, with racism being a huge factor in the school en- vironment and peers being unwelcom- ing to foreigners especially those who AT A GLANCE WHO: Victorian Arabic Social Services WHAT: A non-profit organisation focused on providing services to both the Arabic community and those outside of it WHERE: C1, 1-13 The Gateway, Broadmeadows, Vic. 3047 WEBSITE: vass.org.au