A sprawling ecosystem

Here on our nine-acre site, Addi Road dedicates itself to food justice and fighting inequality, multicultural gatherings, arts and youth events, sustainability and environmental concerns, and a phenomenally broad range of programs, events and activities that support positive mental health and community wellbeing.

It’s a sprawling ecosystem. A place like no other.

Along with everything Addi Road does directly, through our many programs and partnerships, we also provide user-friendly and affordable tenancies for over 40 other civil society organisations, multicultural groups and artists.

This long list includes a community radio station, two active theatres, a popular community hall and our very own art gallery, as well as a home for the much-loved Sunday Marrickville Organic Markets.

Apart from all this on offer at Addi Road, there is the simple pleasure of its campus-like open space with over 170 trees, alive and thriving in the centre of the city.

A living museum

Every week, thousands of people enter our gates, walking past our Honour Roll for Peace. The honour roll is indebted to Addi Road’s origins as a military barracks for Anzacs in World War One. Many buildings from that era are heritage-listed and respectfully noted on our history walks through the centre today.

This military history endured until the Vietnam War and the mid 1960s, when anti-conscription activism by a group of women who called themselves S.O.S. (Save our Sons) seeded the Australian peace movement. Our Honour Roll for Peace continues to acknowledge those who work for peace and a better, fairer world today.

By1976, the ageing military barracks had fallen into poor repair and disuse. Local ethnic groups across Marrickville and Sydney’s Inner West had been lobbying for years to have the grounds handed back to the community. They wanted to establish a childcare centre. They wished to have a place where they could celebrate their rich cultural histories, their languages, music and art.

It was handed over to the locals in 1976, though it would take another five years of lobbying and activism to secure a lease and bring a feeling of permanency to all the energy that poured into what people know today as the Addison Road Community Centre.

The Whitlam-era Federal Government’s vision for a multicultural Australia found its roots here at Addi Road – its voice and its applied reality. Visiting the centre just after it opened, Al Grassby declared it “one small world in Australia”. Fifty years later in 2023, Addi Road was chosen as the venue for the launch of the Federal Government’s Multicultural Framework Policy, determining the nation’s direction for the next half a century, entrenching symbolic recognition of Addi Road as the birthplace and flameholder for multiculturalism in Australia today.

We continue to work in a multiplicity of ways for the community today. And we find that our diverse community inspires and shapes us in return.

“There is the simple pleasure of its campus-like open space with over 170 trees, alive and thriving in the centre of the city.”

Addi Road is well known for its food justice work through our two food pantries: one at home base here in Marrickville along with our sister pantry store in partnership with Mission Australia’s Common Ground over in Camperdown. Then there’s our weekly Wednesday Night Lights at the Marrickville community centre, providing free sit-down hot meals and free wraparound services that include medical support, laundry, and legal advice.

We keep engaging with immediate needs in these ways. While we we also strive to offer longer-term possibilities. Our Addi Sounds recording studio (in partnership with ANU School of Music) provides access and training to a new generation of young musicians. Addi Moves, a trauma-informed and free-access gym (in partnership with UNSW), helps people with physical and mental health. Then there’s our StirrUp Gallery where we hold the Public Schools Arts Festival and open the venue to artists locally.

At Addi Road, you’ll see people walking their dogs and sociably strolling through a low-density environment that offers respite from the city’s pace. You’ll find children climbing trees; young people playing basketball behind Gumbramorra Hall; a community meeting space and venue for everything from food relief hamper-packing during Covid lockdowns through to annual events like Addi Sounds Youth Fest and Addi Road Writers’ Festival.

Little wonder that Anthony Albanese, our local Federal Member for the Grayndler electorate and Australia’s 31st Prime Minister, has described Addi Road as “the heartbeat of the Inner West”.

What our friends say

Champion footballer and human rights activist Craig Foster calls Addi Road:

“… a working demonstration of what Australia can be. Diverse and unafraid. Informed and rights-focused. Multi-everything: multicultural, multilingual, multigenerational.”

ABC journalist Annabel Crabb, a regular volunteer at our annual Hampers of Hope Christmas week, describes her experiences at Addi Road in this way:

“You receive the privilege of meeting people whose journeys have been hard, and whose spirits are strong.”

Chef Kylie Kwong helped us to rethink our Hampers of Hope program so we could provide better and more culturally appropriate food relief during Covid lockdowns:

“Addi Road changed my life. It took me out of the closed world of the professional kitchen and placed me shoulder to shoulder with volunteers from everywhere – students, retirees, artists, activists, writers, hospitality workers who’d lost their jobs, neighbours who just turned up and stayed.”

Jo Haylen MP, the Member for Summer Hill, recognised Addi Road in a recent NSW State Parliament speech this year, marking our 50th birthday:

“… the story of Addison Road belongs to the generations of volunteers, community leaders and locals who transformed it into one of Australia’s most significant centres of multiculturalism, social justice and community life’, noting especially our food justice programs, including the famous Food Pantry, have become a lifeline for people struggling through a cost-of-living crisis. People receive more than food. They receive dignity and they receive a connection.”

Celebrate Addi Road’s 50th anniversary in our special event on Saturday 17 October.