HEAL Champions

Community Hubs are welcoming places where migrant and refugee families, particularly mothers with young children, come to connect, share, and learn.

Hubs focus on helping women and children learn and practice English and building pathways to volunteering and employment.

The Meadows Primary School Community Hub is working with DPV Health, a not-for-profit organisation that offers health care services, to train four parent leaders as Healthy Eating and Active Living champions.

“Myself and three other mothers from school attended the HEAL course and three of us facilitate cooking lessons as part of our Adult Conversational English program at school,” says hub participant Eliza.

Through the HEAL program and the Parents and Friends Association, the mothers assisted in the school’s Sustainability Expo.

The HEAL champions showcased their skills, taking the role of MC and presenting an energy workshop, healthy lunchbox preparation, and cooking demonstrations for to reach over 100 people.

On the last day of the expo, DPV Health organised a ‘smoothie bicycle’ to power blenders, and families walked throughout the school to see their children’s suitability designs.

Local community services including the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Lentara Uniting Care, and Hume City Council joined DPV Health to deliver presentations from financial literacy through to composting.

“We have worked with the school teachers and organised healthy lunch box recipe ideas to get translated into Arabic via a mother at school, had people donate lunch boxes for display on the day, parents to prepare the food and demonstrate sushi making on the day.” Eliza said.

The NCHP is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS), in partnership with the Scanlon Foundation, state and local governments, and Community Hubs Australia.