On the 13th of October, Julien Leyre who is a French-Australian writer, educator and  social entrepreneur, won the Multicultural Excellence Award from the Victorian Multicultural Commission. Julien received a special mention for his contribution to the learning of languages and for intercultural communication, in particular through his role with the Marco Polo Project. Through this project, Julien has created a supportive place for Chinese and English learners to hone their translation skills, and deepened readers’ understanding of contemporary Chinese culture by hearing directly from Chinese voices.

As well as this work, Julien has also been involved in developing original formats for events such as Melbourne Knowledge Week and the Chinese Writers Festival in Melbourne. He also heavily contributed to the first China Australia Millennial Project in 2015 for which he recruited 130 Australian and Chinese delegates.

Since the start of 2016, Julien has been continuing to develop new methods of lanugage learning and breaking down cultural barriers, in order to encourage empathy, resilience and self-belief.