Work is officially underway on Australia’s first ever Vietnamese Cultural Centre and Museum, with the first sod turned on the site in Sunshine – the epicentre for Vietnamese culture in Victoria and Australia.
Minister for Multicultural Affairs Ingrid Stitt attended the project’s official ground breaking ceremony and announced an additional $2 million in Labor Government funding to support the construction and fit-out of the Vietnamese Cultural Centre and Museum.
Once complete, the Museum will be a destination for Vietnamese Victorians to honour and celebrate their heritage and preserve stories of migration and refugee settlement.
Backed by an investment of $8.7 million by the Allan Labor Government, it will host exhibitions to honour migrant journeys to freedom and celebrate the significant contributions of the Vietnamese community to the multicultural fabric of Australia, with the museum set to receive more than 280 artefacts.
The three-storey building will also include a resource centre for education, as well as a function centre and café to accommodate community events for up to 450 guests from across Victoria, interstate and abroad.
This milestone comes as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vietnamese settlement in Australia, marking five decades of contribution, resilience, and cultural heritage.
The Labor Government investment in the project acknowledges the importance of the more than 121,000 people of Vietnamese heritage living in Victoria, with more than 93,000 born in Vietnam – making it the fifth largest overseas born population in Victoria.
The Vietnamese Museum Australia is one of seven cultural museums in the Multicultural Museums Victoria Network, alongside the Nafsika Stamoulis Hellenic Museum, Museum of Chinese Australian History, Jewish Museum of Australia, Islamic Museum of Australia, Museo Italiano and Golden Dragon Museum.