‘So not knowing about it, not knowing their rights, not having the language skills, not trusting the system, not trusting that anything will be done about it, not knowing who to go to, and also a lot of the communities also said you know, we've come from war, so yes, this is bad, but it's not that bad, you know.’55 This reluctance combined with a lack of understanding of how to report racism also has an intergenerational impact on the children of those affected by racism. Participants spoke of children from targeted communities minimising such experiences as simply ‘name calling’ within the school environment and not wanting to bother their parents with what they were experiencing at school. This supports the advice of the national peak body MYAN. Another stakeholder stressed that it was important for awareness-raising activities to help to inform the public about their rights, as ‘community members might be experiencing racism but don’t know they are or how to address it.’ Various participants advised that ‘upskilling’ and raising awareness about racism among community members and leaders in targeted communities is a significant task and that this is made much harder by the ‘complicated process’ of reporting. In some instances, those leading anti-racism work conveyed the difficulties in communicating available options for those experiencing racism and that if these complaints were met with little or inadequate responses, this led to a feeling of hopelessness: ‘It may be a police matter, but often it isn't. It might be something that the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission can help mediate, but sometimes it isn't. It might need some legal information, but it might not. The person may want to do something about it, but they might not. It might be to do with schools’ system, in which case it should go through the you know, Department of Education. It could be the health system; in which case it should go somewhere else. It could be, public transport in which you know it, it can be, you know, reported somehow else. Some people might be happy just with reporting and not expecting any other support, but other people go what's the point in reporting?’56 One stakeholder described ongoing racial abuse which culminated in property damage that was reported to police but was ‘not taken seriously.’ After making a report to police and attending the police station, the victim ended up having to fix the property themselves due to a lack of police action. After attending a community information session with local police who apologised for the poor police response, the police explained that making a direct report via the Community Reporting Tool, an online system provided by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC) would have been better. This stakeholder explained that this could further 55 Various Victorian and other interviews 56 Victorian stakeholder 36