Chapter 8: A New Era

The new normal

On 31 March 2020, in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, Victoria was plunged into lockdown. Schools, businesses and entertainment venues closed, all non-essential workers were made to work from home, students were to learn from home, and everything moved online. On top of this, VICSEG’s new Executive Director, Elias Tsigaras who only recently took over from John Zika upon his retirement at the end 2018, had to step down from the role early in 2020, leaving the organisation in a precarious position. The Board asked Maree Raftis to temporarily step into the Executive Director role, a position she maintained throughout the entire pandemic.

That was full-on [the] pandemic. In fact, I think on the 24th of March, which happened to be my birthday, [Premier] Dan Andrews announced that we were facing a full-on emergency and recommended that organisations like ours and schools and universities as far as possible operate from home, remotely. So over those holidays we did that. We transformed the organisation from one that is indeed very, very intensely face-to-face to one that was the opposite of that. And that brought a whole lot of challenges with it. Not only had I stepped into a role that I was utterly unfamiliar with but that was also for our staff and students.

Maree Raftis, Executive Director

But, as it has with every challenge in its 40 plus years of operations, VICSEG New Futures adapted to this ‘new normal’ and embraced the challenges with agility, flexibility and positivity.

Challenges remained, however, particularly for an organisation that has been built around face-to-face connection, sharing and celebrating together. As an organisation, VICSEG New Futures celebrates as many cultural and religious holidays as relevant to its staff members, sharing food and learning about the significance of each event from staff members. When Covid struck, all that stopped. ‘There was none of that’, remembers Maree. ‘They were all at home … That was probably the single biggest struggle, trying to keep people’s morale up.’

The uncertainty of 2020 with various lockdowns and insecurity made the first year of the pandemic hard, but by 2021 VICSEG New Futures, like everyone else, had become experts and working and learning online. By 2021, online playgroups saw increased participation rates and, an unintended but positive consequence, also participation from rural and regional families as far away as Mildura and Nhill who otherwise had no access to playgroups in their own languages in their home towns.

VICSEG New Futures also took a leading role using their online platforms to share and communicate information about the pandemic rules, local testing and vaccination sites.

Moving all the training courses online was a challenge at first. Student Services Manager Simran Udas was at the forefront of organising and supporting students shifting online. ‘Initially, it was really, really hard’, she remembers, ‘a lot of challenges to get them [students] into online classes’. Students, like staff members, really missed the socialisation that came with face-to-face studies.

Some things just couldn’t move online. The Second Stitch textiles course, which had only just begun, had to be put on hold. ‘And that was really hard to shut everything down’, remembers Caspar.

Once it became clear that the pandemic was not going away anytime soon, Second Stitch began making reusable facemasks.

We started making reusable cloth masks and that went from literally overnight, we went from having two part-time people to 24 full-time staff that were all our ex-students. I think about 30 per cent of them were seeking asylum or people in that particular visa class – refugee visa class. So that was something great and we all at the drop of a hat or within days had to develop an almost industrial-sized logistics operation around freighting all this stuff out and it had a really nice feel where these women who had spent their lives as outsiders were able to get a permit and drive across town and be kind of validated that they were allowed to be out, that they were allowed to work. That they were in meaningful work that mattered.

Caspar Zika, General Manager

Like the online playgroups, moving training courses online also opened up opportunities to other potential students previously limited by the physical location of courses. Emerging from the pandemic, Simran and her team are keen to build on the skills they learned during the pandemic and expand training opportunities to include some online options for students into the future.

No matter how much we acknowledge and celebrate our resilience and our strength, the events of 2021 will leave a lasting impact on us all. The positives have been charted and we have built on new ways of seeing ourselves as contributors to the organisation’s vision – all that is true. But there has also been enormous loss over these past two years, and it will be dependent on us to spend time rebuilding and rediscovering ourselves and our communities. We have in our hearts the families who have lost loved ones across the world, but especially here in Victoria. There have also been job losses and business collapses under the pressure of extended lockdowns with the loss of family income, security and optimism. But most of all it has been the everyday losses that have affected us most profoundly.

Maree Raftis, Executive Director

Forty years young

VICSEG New Futures, like so many organisations and communities around the world, is emerging into the new post-pandemic world changed. While many of the wounds sustained through lockdowns and the trials endured by living a remote and online existence will heal, the scars from such a time will remain. There will be more challenges ahead, but as an organisation, VICSEG New Futures has proven time and time again it has the flexibility and agility to respond quickly and decisively where it is needed best.

I think the whole beauty of VICSEG [New Futures] is it’s like a duck at the front of the flock. Sometimes they would lead and then they’d peel off and go back and be a partner.

Kevin Pope, education consultant and former school principal

‘We have been blessed’, reflects former Executive Director John Zika, ‘with having key people who have got vision and energy and we haven’t had to buy in diversity. We’ve just had it’.

John Zika and Maree Raftis have been a huge part of the organisation for the last three decades. While John officially retired in 2018, he’s remained connected to the organisation through his relationship with Maree and their son Caspar. Taking on the role of Executive Director was not Maree’s plan, but when the need arose, she took on the leadership role and steered the organisation admirably through some of its toughest years. Looking to step away soon, Maree sees the organisation in a good place.

John and I have got particular values around other humans … we’ve attracted a group of people to this organisation that somehow understand the power of what they’re doing … a lot of them see it as part of their family.

One of the great things about VICSEG [New Futures] is it’s a fun place to work or to be involved with. I mean, whether you’re on the board, or whether you’re on the staff or whether you’re a person in the community who attends the programs, the focus is on fun – on really celebrating diversity … VICSEG actually celebrates achievement.

Janet Elefsiniotis, former Manager Community Programs, VICSEG

Will VICSEG New Futures be around for another 40 years? Caspar Zika thinks so.

"I hope I’m not here in 40 years! … I think it’s got its roots in very deep and we’ve got 45,000 of our ex-students who are on our database and I think a good proportion of them have really positive experiences. So as long as we keep adapting and we keep providing them with avenues and things that will benefit, and their friends and their family and people in their communities who arrive as they become leaders and community mentors will help people who arrive to guide their path through, I think we’ll be able to adapt and be here."

Former students like Jessie Paath agree. Jessie says that the support and respect she received modelled by her trainers at VICSEG New Futures had a lasting influence on how she approaches her own students:

Those values, experiences, good things, positive things that I’ve experienced what those trainers at VICSEG – [I’ve] taken away until today. So thank you, VICSEG, I hope their good ways never change.