The Migrant Information Centre is a VicRoads registered road safety community group that is committed to road safety in Victoria. We are also members of RoadSafe Eastern Metro – a registered community road safety group that promotes road safety throughout the Eastern Region of Melbourne.
Driver Education
Buying a car and obtaining a drivers licence is an important part of settlement for newly arrived migrants and refugees as it helps them to gain employment and participate in social activities within the community.
Victorian road rules can be very different from their countries of origin and for some, it is their first opportunity for them to drive and own a vehicle. We provide driving education programs and subsidized driving lessons to assist refugees to learn how to drive safely on Victorian roads.
We also own a car for driving practice sessions with volunteer driving mentors. People who have no community or family members who can provide additional driving practice and who have completed our driving education program can access practice driving sessions through our driving volunteer mentoring program.
Drink and Drug Driving
Understanding the dangers of drink and drug driving is essential to promote safe driving practices. We have trained bilingual presenters who provide drink and drug driving education through the “Looking After Our Mates” program in four Burmese Chin dialects, Karen and Farsi.
“Looking After Our Mates” is a program designed to prevent drink and drug driving through understanding the tragic impact of crashes involving alcohol and drugs on individuals, family members and the wider community, how alcohol and drugs affect our driving and strategies to put in place to prevent drink and drug driving – “if you plan to drink don’t drive; if you plan to drive don’t drink”.
For information about our drink and drug driving education program see our evaluation report or contact us.
Older Road Users
We provide pedestrian safety programs, road rules refresher programs and programs to prepare people for changes in their physical and mental abilities as they age.
Our programs are targeted to older people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are members of senior citizen’s groups across the Eastern Region – Boroondara, Knox, Manningham, Maroondah, Monash, Whitehorse and Yarra Ranges.
Bike Education
We provide bike education to promote road safety for newly arrived children and young people. Our trained staff ensure that children and young people understand road rules and how to ride their bikes safely on our roads.
Road safety for young children
We provide education to newly arrived parents on how they can ensure their babies and preschool aged children are safe on our roads.
In collaboration with Early Learning Association Australia – an agency that specializes in road safety for children – we are developing a culturally and linguistically appropriate early childhood road safety presentation to educate parents on how they can keep their children safe when walking, crossing roads and getting in and out of cars.
We also provide child restraints clinics with qualified fitters that ensure child car seats are safely fitted and appropriate for the child.
For further information about all our road safety programs, please contact us.