Australia – Multicultural Country Quilts

In September 2015 Queanbeyan Multicultural Centre formed a volunteer creative team: Mahsa (Iran), Nadezhda (Russia) and Neha (India). We came up with the idea of creating a reversible quilt. We selected 14 kinds of fabric. Since this was a new experience to many participants, we started by cutting squares and rectangles.

For the other side of the quilt, we created a tree, to symbolise Australia. Each leaf of the tree has a country name, from the people that came to live and work here. Both sides of the quilt were equally wonderful – so we backed them separately, for showing, but it is not for sale. We are very grateful to all who participated in our project; also a very special thanks to the management of the Queanbeyan Multicultural Centre. The centre has been supporting migrants and refugees for over 30 years in Queanbeyan region.

The new quilt project of Queanbeyan Multicultural Centre started in September 2016. The volunteer team consisted of Mahsa, Nadezhda (now with baby Svetlana) and Paola (Chile). They created the design with the theme “Australia, a welcoming country for children” representing different countries who are living in Queanbeyan. With the help of many other young people from the Centre they worked hard to present their colourful quilt. It shows children from Russia, Mexico, Iran, Chile, Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Nepal, China, Brazil, Italy, India and Vietnam. Of course children from everywhere are included.