The City of Yarra in Melbourne’s inner city may include galleries, bars, funky restaurants and trendy shopping strips featuring local up and coming designers from Bridge Road in Richmond to Brunswick and Smith Streets in Fitzroy and Collingwood respectively; but it also has many high-density public housing estates and a large population of newly arrived and disadvantaged people from places such as Somalia, Liberia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Iran.
It is this diversity and eclecticism, with over 50% of the population being born elsewhere, that makes the City of Yarra such an interesting and attractive area, yet there are also obvious divisions in opportunity. That is something that Snap Hop Rotary Youth Arts Project (RYAP) and the Next Step program attempt to address.
