We are the trusted delivery partner of Resilience Against Racism Program
Found by Wesa Chau and Christine Yeung
Wesa Chau, Co-founder of Resilience against Racism
“Resilience Against Racism has been working in partnership with AAOP to deliver our resilience programs to support people who have experienced or witnessed racism. The AAOP team has been a delight to work with. They provided us with probono support and all volunteers were professional and we are so grateful to have a team of qualified psychologists who also understand the influence of culture. When discussing the topic of racism, having facilitators with personal experience improves the quality of the delivery. We are keen to continue the partnership and potentially develop future programs together.”
Resilience Against Racism aims to help people build personal and community resilience to cope with adversaries such as racism. We run a number of workshops for people who may have experienced racism themselves, a direct witness or indirect witness to racism.
Driven by an evidence-based approach, the workshops are facilitated by trained culturally diverse organisational psychologists and co-designed by people with lived experience and culturally diverse social innovators with deep understanding on how cultural diversity impacts on design and delivery of the programs.
5 signature workshops
These evidence-based workshops are designed to support anyone who have experienced racism, direct witness to an racist incident or indirect witnesses who have been impacted by the news, and equip everyone in the community the skills and capability to cope with racism and contribute to a strong and resilient community.
How to deal with my emotions?
Experiencing racism or directly and indirectly witnessing racism can be overwhelming and often trigger challenging emotional responses, such as fear, anger and shame. The workshop aims to help you build the skills to understand your emotions after racial incidents, particularly those who are overwhelmed. This workshop will also help you return to emotional balance and calmness.
Reframe and Empower
The impact of challenging emotions may linger long after a racism incident. This workshop supports you to develop the skills to make sense of your incident and the ability to shift any challenging thoughts and direct them positively to create change. This may include negative self-talk after adversity and regain optimism in life.
Rebuilding your strong cultural identity
One of the key ways to fight racism is to be proud of your own cultural heritage rather than rejecting it in order to “fit-in” to Australian society. Research suggested that having a positive cultural identity and strong sense of self is particularly helpful in combating race-related stress and stereotype threat. This workshop helps you reconnect with your cultural strengths, values and beliefs and reinforce pride in your cultural identity and thereby help you build confidence.
Note: This workshop is NOT suitable for those who are overwhelmed by racial incidents. It is recommended that if you are overwhelmed to first attend the workshop Racism: How to deal with my emotions.
Rebuilding your strong cultural identity
There may be times you want to support your friends and your community to cope with racism or hold a space to discuss racism when you know there are people who oppose it. These are important conversations and are challenging to do and require an expanded capacity to listen to all sides with empathy.
This workshop aims to help you to expand the capacity and build the confidence to respond to others emotional needs with a higher level of sensitively and empathy and also ensuring your own perspectives are heard and your own needs are met.
Note: This workshop is NOT suitable for those who are overwhelmed by racial incidents. It is recommended that if you are overwhelmed to first attend the workshop Racism: How to deal with my emotions.
Speak up with confidence
It can be challenging to discuss the topic of racism when the space and people around you does not support the discussion, however we know that racism still impacts on your wellbeing and is a barrier to your full belonging in Australia. The workshop aims to support you to develop effective communication skills to challenge racism, express disapproval and express your needs assertively on the spot.