SBS’s The Cultural Atlas expands offering to include religions

SBS's The Cultural Atlas has announced it has expanded its online directory offering to include detailed profiles of eight of Australia’s most observed religions.

The update sees profiles on Roman Catholic Christianity, Protestant Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Theravāda Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism added to the popular online resource.

The Cultural Atlas was developed by SBS in partnership with digital platform Incluude as part of the SBS Inclusion Program, and has become one of SBS’s most visited websites, receiving over 4.5 million unique visitors each year.

It is designed for government, educational, business and community groups providing them comprehensive information on the cultural background of Australia’s many diverse communities.

Leon Coningham SBS’s head of distribution, said: "The Cultural Atlas has become the go-to source of information for a large range of organisations seeking to better understand Australia’s increasing diversity among communities.

"It is fantastic to see these religion profiles being added to the Atlas which already explores more than 70 cultures," he added.

Luke Latimer, MD of Incluude, said: "The aim of The Cultural Atlas is to improve social cohesion and promote inclusion in an increasingly culturally diverse society through creating better understanding."

The new religion profiles provide detailed and reliable information including key figures, historical and geographical details as well as the doctrines, philosophies, social structure/institutions and rituals/practises for each religion.

The Cultural Atlas also includes the key dates, events and festivals of each of the eight religions including a description of how the events are practised.

All published content in the Cultural Atlas is the result of a collective effort between researchers, editors and members of the Australian community that have cross-cultural identities or familiarities.

Further religious profiles are in development with the Sikhism religious profile well advanced.

The Cultural Atlas is a collaborative project between SBS, International Education Services (IES), and Multicultural NSW. The directory was created in 2016 and aims to inform and educate the public in cross-cultural attitudes, practices, norms, behaviours and communications.

These cultural observations are contextualised with up-to-date statistics about Australia’s migrant populations and information on their trends of arrival and settlement.

The goal is to enhance social cohesion in Australia and improve outcomes for individuals and organisations operating in an increasingly culturally diverse society.