Restorative Justice Project

Africause responds to challenges facing African-Australian youth and their families around education and training, economic participation and social inclusion. Focusing on our youth, we aim to prevent school disengagement and unemployment, risk-taking behaviour which may lead to contact with the criminal justice system.

African-Australian young people across Melbourne’s western suburbs, primarily Sudanese and South-Sudanese young people, are increasingly disengaging from school and some are increasingly involved in gang activity that leads to contact with the police and incarceration in the juvenile justice system. In Victoria, African-Australian young people now comprise more than 50% of the total juvenile justice population.

In 2024, Africause commissioned RMIT’s Centre for Innovative Justice to produce a Restorative Justice model that could be implemented by Africause to prevent and reduce reduce the criminal offending of young African people. The model seeks to engage the community at large in supporting young people into a crime free pathway. This will include parents/family members of the young person in question, teachers/principals, professional support staff and community leaders within the African community that will act as mentors and guide the young person through one on one support for unspecified period of time. The model is not dependent on one member of the support team, but relies on the collective support of all model members who bring their specific expertise to support the young person.

We are looking to fund a one year pilot program of what we want to establish as a permanent and on going program.