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African Women’s and Families Network (AWAFN), former African Women’s Network South East (AWNSE), is a non-for-profit Community Organisation based that started in 2011 to provide opportunities for African Australian women, men, youth, families and friends to enhance their understanding and skills, to socialize and interact with the wider community.  AWAFN caters to all sorts of situations and needs.

African Women’s and Families Network creates safe and appropriate capacity building contexts for women, children, youth and men to realise their potential.

Our Vision

African Women’s and Families Network (AWAFN) works towards Victorian African Australian women, youth, men and their families that are:

  • Healthy, thriving and dignified
  • Safe and secure
  • Resilient
  • Harmonious
  • Equitably accessing professional vocational and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Mission

AWAFN, with its network of independent organisations, leads in proactively responding to diverse settlement and integration needs of the Victorian African Australian women, youth and their families through:

  • Capacity building – Resource seeking
  • Community mobilization – women, family, men and youth
  • Cross-cultural competencies – understanding how things work
  • Establishing and employing various effective methods of communications (social media such as Facebook, Websites, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, texting, email and phone calls)
  • Proactive engagements, partnerships and lobbying
  • Strong relationships through respect, value building and appreciation
  • Linking to services and advocacy
  • Creating advantages and opportunities e.g.
    • Vocational training
    • Professional development
    • Resources (personal advancement)

VALUES

AWAFN believes that our values are important because they help us to grow and develop. They help us to create the future we want to experience. Our values include:

  • Lifelong Learning
  • Honesty
  • Integrity
  • Respect and celebrate cultural diversity and inclusiveness (‘Ubuntu’ Humanity)
  • Human dignity
  • Strong families and partnerships to enable communities to access appropriate resources/services
  • Acknowledge the rights of Indigenous people and their ties to the land we live in
  • Safety