Protection Visa Cultural Community Engagement Project

The Department of Home Affairs required a culturally sensitive and fast-moving campaign to reach diverse communities, disrupt misinformation, and discourage non-genuine Protection Visa (PV) applications.

Key challenges included: rising numbers of non-genuine PV applications from high-risk cultural groups, widespread misinformation circulating through informal community channels, and low trust in mainstream or government-led communications.

CulturalPulse was engaged to lead targeted multicultural outreach through trusted, in-culture channels and community voices ensuring education, access to reliable information, and responsible migration awareness.

The Approach

• Analysis of Department data revealed a continued rise in PV misuse, particularly among temporary visa holders from specific cultural backgrounds.
• CulturalPulse reviewed over 170 potential Community Ambassadors, ultimately onboarding 94 trusted representatives across 5 states.
• CulturalPulse rapidly mobilised its Cultural Ambassador Network, recruiting and inducting 94 Ambassadors across 10 priority cultural communities including: Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Colombian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Fijian, Tongan, and Papua New Guinean.
• Recruitment and training of Community Ambassadors, including police checks, induction briefings, and resource toolkits in 15 languages.
• Co-creation and distribution of culturally sensitive campaign materials across 200+ community channels, including private WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, in-language newspapers, student groups, livestreams, and events.
• Localised creative assets and translated messaging (including Spanish and Bengali) tailored to each community’s context.
• Activation of community events, ambassador-led discussions, printed materials, and social video storytelling to reach people both online and offline.

The Outcome

The campaign exceeded expectations in both scale and engagement, delivering strong national reach and high-quality community impact in four weeks.

• 94 active ambassadors representing 10 multicultural communities across 5 states.
• 480 campaign posts (160% of target) across social, community and event-based platforms.
• 3.1 million+ total reach across Facebook, WhatsApp, WeChat, Instagram, LinkedIn, in-language press and radio.
• 1,000+ click-throughs to the Department of Home Affairs website (despite 40% of posts not using trackable links).
• 23,000+ reactions across posts tracked using campaign hashtags.
• Featured in major community channels including Desi Australia, Sunrise Daily Vietnamese Newspaper, Latino Crew livestream, Cachivaches Latin Market, and numerous student, faith-based, and cultural organisations.