Community Dinner

What happens when people live in the same neighbourhood but have few meaningful relationships across cultural backgrounds? Lynda explores interculturalism and why positive, lasting connections matter for belonging and community safety.

Drawing on more than 30 years of practice, a decade of working with young people and a Master’s degree in Criminology, Lynda shares her view that a lack of sustained, positive intercultural relationships can contribute to the disconnection experienced by some young people. She considers what this means for youth crime prevention, alongside the wider circumstances that shape young people’s lives.

Through the award-winning Open Doors police–community project, the Melton Community Leaders Collaboration and her work in entrepreneurship and community engagement, Lynda illustrates how people can create opportunities to know, trust and work with one another.

This conversation invites us to consider our role: whose lives do we connect with, who remains outside our circles, and how might we help young people experience themselves as valued members of a community?

Lynda Ford OAM is the founder of Mosaic Intercultural Solutions, and a Council of Europe Intercultural Expert. She brings more than 30 years’ experience across government and community organisations, including youth work, migrant and refugee settlement, community development and entrepreneurship. Her work focuses on how relationships between people from different cultural backgrounds strengthen belonging and social cohesion. Lynda’s experience includes the award-winning Open Doors police–community project in Logan and coordinating the Melton Community Leaders Collaboration. In 2001 she received the Centenary Medal for services to multiculturalism in Queensland, and in 2021 she received the Medal of the Order of Australia for her service to multiculturalism in Victoria.