Young Muslim women experience disadvantage specific to their age and location in society, but they also exist in a context of disadvantage demonstrated by the lives of their parents. In this context of disadvantage, young women develop and must negotiate a place for themselves in Australia. The situation of young Muslim women is perhaps the most difficult social and cultural position to occupy among the divergent positions occupied by Muslim women in Australia. Like older Muslim women they are descendants of a multitude of traditions and values associated with the Islamic-cultural heritage of their parents. However whether young women are born in Australia or they arrive at a young age, their experience of Australia will markedly define their identity and needs, and their place in and contribution to this nation. In this respect, young Muslim women occupy a unique and different place than that of their older counterparts.  In addition to this, most communities actively discriminate against their young and both Muslim and non-Muslim communities provide little space for the communities of young people to significantly affect community life. There is a conflation, we believe, of the needs of young people and the needs of the community; however difficulties encountered by communities in the settlement process will invariably affect how young women experience and understand their Australian context.  The Council believes that this conflation, significantly and negatively disadvantages young people, rendering them silent and invisible. For young women, cultural demands within and outside their community are greater than those of their young male counterparts and their female older counterparts; their position is unique both in vulnerability and potential. It is the view of the Council that they must be supported to meet all their challenges not only because they are vulnerable to abuse, but also because they embody the history, future and potential for the community.

The Diversity and Choices Project seeks to empower young women with knowledge, support, communication and leadership skills to facilitate their growth as women and their settlement. Individual support is provided for young women, especially in matters related to family and education. Groupwork and conferences are also provided to young women to support them in matters of self esteem and development of the self, peer support, mentoring and leadership skills to enable them to negotiate better outcomes for themselves in the context they live in.

The Homework Support Program provides three programs across schools in the state to assist young Muslim women academically and ensure that they remain at school. This program is essential in a context of the Victorian educational system’s low retention rate of Muslim young women in secondary education. Refugee and newly arrived migrant young Muslim women are highly represented as service users of this program. Assisting young women through the provision of homework support has been greatly undervalued both by government and the community welfare sector, particularly for children and young people who do not start school on an equal language, cultural and economic footing as the vast majority of Australians.