Building strong multicultural connections
Working with people and families with disability from multicultural backgrounds remains one of the focus areas for our local area coordination partner in the community program.
Through collaboration with community leaders, and by developing trusted relationships with key stakeholders in multicultural communities, our Embracing Disability in Multicultural Communities project is working across Queensland to reduce the stigma of disability felt in many culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
Recently, we’ve had success in the Brisbane South area, thanks to our close connections with the Queensland African Communities Council and the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland.
Through these connections, we’ve worked directly with African communities, including families with disability from Somalia, South Sudan, Rwanda and surrounding countries and villages.
To support and build awareness of disability within multicultural communities, we have produced a four-minute video resource, ‘Embracing Disability in Multicultural Communities’, featuring three mothers from Somalia and South Sudan, who have children with disability.
They speak openly about the challenges they faced from within their African communities and why it’s important others speak out and share their truth.
To complement this work, our LAC teams across the state are continuing to connect with people from multicultural backgrounds to better understand their unique and ongoing support needs.
They are focused on connecting with culturally appropriate supports to help people with disability from multicultural backgrounds, particularly those who may not be eligible for the NDIS.
Our North Lakes office services the Moreton Bay region, one of the fastest-growing and culturally diverse regions in Australia. In this area of southeast Queensland, there are 157 different languages spoken, with one in four people born overseas from 184 countries.
In our North Lakes office, we have 7 bilingual team members, allowing people to feel more supported if they choose to speak with someone in their native tongue. Some of the languages spoken include Samoan, Mandarin, French, Spanish, Auslan and Bengali.
Close working relationships have also been formed with leaders in the Chinese community, stakeholders within Caboolture Hospital and The Community Action for a Multicultural Society (CAMS) program.
Offering services across Moreton Bay, CAMS hosts bi-monthly stakeholder engagement meetings providing us a platform to promote workshops and services Carers Queensland offers for people with disability from multicultural communities, as well as providing support, referrals and connections to community and mainstream services for those who may not be eligible to access the NDIS.
Being able to offer multicultural families with disability links to community connections ensures we’re supporting our communities in every way possible to achieve their goals and exercise choice and control in their lives.
|