Melbourne’s trams have had a striking makeover, thanks to a partnership with a local community organisation supporting migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women to find employment.

SisterWorks’ ‘Hire Her: Migrant and Refugee Women’ campaign launched on 31 January as part of the 2023 Yarra trams Community Partnerships Program. This annual program provides in-kind advertising, in the form of a tram wrap, to social enterprises. As a result, these enterprises get their names on the world’s largest tram network.

The theme for the 2023 program is ‘Building a Resilient and Sustainable Melbourne’. 

According to Yarra Trams, the selected partners – which also include Oz Harvest and Asylum Seeker’s Resource Centre – focus on important issues that are “meaningful to Melburnians”, from climate and economic resilience to equitable opportunity.

A moving campaign

SisterWorks provides training and coaching, on-the-job experience, and professional support to assist vulnerable women to become gainfully employed. To that end, SistersWorks campaign artwork was licensed from one of its ‘Entrepreneur Sisters’, Camila Paz, and features products made by five other Sisters in its Entrepreneurship and Business Mentor Program.

Running for four months, the Hire Her public campaign seeks to broaden awareness of SisterWorks as a not-for-profit social enterprise and highlight its mission.

“We seek partners and pathways to employ our Sisters and support our training programs and are excited that our Yarra Trams campaign can help advocate for and help remove barriers in hiring migrants and refugees,” says SisterWorks CEO Ifrin Fittock.