Welcome to The Water Well Project's quarterly newsletter.
The Water Well Project is a health promotion charity that improves the health literacy of communities from migrant, refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds.
We work in partnership with community organisations to provide inclusive and interactive health education sessions, facilitated by our base of over 220 volunteer healthcare professionals.
Dear Water Well Family,
What a busy month April has been with Easter, Greek Easter, Ramadan, Passover, plus many other cultural celebrations. It is such a lovely time of year with the changing colour of the autumn leaves to remind us that winter is approaching.
It has been a busy month for our team at Water Well Project with the return to face-to-face sessions to connect with community groups to facilitate interactive, inclusive health education sessions. Nothing beats meeting in person to discuss important health issues.
We are delighted to welcome 57 new volunteer healthcare professionals to our team to help us deliver our vision to enable equitable access to healthcare for everyone living in Australia. Together we can make a meaningful difference, especially during this pandemic.
Warm regards,
Dr Linny Kimly Phuong (Founder & Director) and Suzie Bratuskins (Executive Officer)
In this reporting quarter, we facilitated 42 health education sessions and reached 570 community participants from migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker backgrounds, with flow-on effects to families and friends.
Our most requested session topics over the last quarter have been:
1. COVID-19 Vaccines
2. Healthy Eating and Lifestyle
3. Social Media and Mental Health
Find out more about booking an interactive health education session for your community here.
In-person sessions are back!
After two long years of Zoom links and digital connections, in February we facilitated our first in-person health education session since the pandemic began. Since then, we have gone from strength to strength and have delivered sessions across Victoria and Tasmania.
In-person sessions offer an opportunity for interactive games and roleplaying that just isn't possible online. In one session with participants learning English to train as Health Service Assistants, the facilitators used interactive games and role-playing activities to help participants understand how language is used within the Australian healthcare system.
Roleplays included a conversation between a doctor and a patient about a headache, a doctor giving instructions to a health services assistant, and conversation between friends about whether or not to attend a party with COVID-19 symptoms. The participants then discussed identifying symptoms of COVID-19, undertaking a rapid antigen test, and isolating until their COVID-19 symptoms resolve.
Thank you to all our volunteers, partners, and donors who have made this possible - both the return to in-person session delivery, and the past two years of online delivery to keep our community safe. If you're interested in organising a health education session, please reach out to our Project Administrator Monique (projectadmin@thewaterwellproject.org) or call her on 0402 270 383.
New session: Ear and Hearing Health
Did you know: The incidence of hearing loss in Australia is steadily rising, with one in six Australians directly affected by hearing loss. It is predicted that by 2050, this figure will increase to one in four people.
To help combat this, our team have put together a new health education session titled 'Ear and Hearing Health' available now. The session discusses common ear infections, causes of hearing loss, and the treatment and resources available to help.
50+ new volunteer healthcare professionals join our team
In March, we ran another online volunteer induction! This session offers training for healthcare professionals looking to volunteer with The Water Well Project. It's an opportunity to learn how to facilitate a session, how to work alongside an interpreter, and get to know the team. We are thrilled to have more than 50 new healthcare heroes volunteer their time to help improve health literacy for communities from migrant, refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds.
Are you, or someone you know, interested in volunteering with The Water Well Project? Our next next online volunteer induction will be held on Monday 23 May from 6.30-8.30pm. Click here to register now!
In the news
Shout out to our friends at How Are You Magazine who featured us in their February issue!
How Are You is an exclusive magazine for women from migrant & refugee backgrounds and a forum for women of all walks of life to connect and share their stories.
Over the holiday season, we were lucky enough to partner with North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network (NWMPHN) on a project to improve vaccination rates amongst hard to reach communities. This project contributed to over 1,750 COVID-19 vaccinations within just a few short months.
If you want to do more to support health literacy, now is your chance - there's an opening on The Water Well Project committee. The Company Secretary plays a key role in the senior executive team of the organisation, providing advice to the Board of Directors on all governance matters, reporting and disclosure requirements.
If you want to learn more about joining our team, click here
EOFY is almost here
As the end of the financial year approaches (already!), you may be thinking about where to make a charitable donation. The Water Well Project is a registered health promotion charity with deductible gift recipient (DGR) status, which means that all donations over $2 are tax-deductible. All donations support our service delivery to help us to provide free, interactive health education sessions to communities from migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker backgrounds.
If you would like to make a donation, please click here
Testimonials
We are so grateful to our community for their ongoing feedback about our sessions. Thank you to one of our participants for this heartfelt testimonial from a COVID and Children session earlier this year:
“Thank you for telling us and educating us about COVID. In my family, my sister who was pregnant, a cousin and an aunty all passed away [in one month] because of COVID. They were not vaccinated and were afraid of the vaccine.
If we had been educated before, we would have known and vaccinated before they got COVID. Please continue educating us and sharing new information with us.”
