Health & multicultural communities

Tell me a little about your role.

I’m a Multicultural Health & Support Service (MHSS) Community Engagement & Project Officer, MHSS is part of the Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health. 

I work with migrant and refugee communities and run educational sessions for them, talking about things like sexual health, STIs and BBVs and healthy relationships. 

It can sometimes be hard to get people to engage at first, but once you start having the conversations people are really interested because they want to know about these things. 

We go out all around Victoria and engage with refugee and migrant communities including international students, community leaders and councils. 

Often the topics we talk about are really simple, and people might assume that everyone knows the information, but lots of people are missing simple information which will really help them with their health and lives. 

What made you interested in working in community health with migrant and refugee communities?

I graduated from Pharmacy in India and afterwards began working in my country in Nepal. I worked in some rural villages where people had difficulty accessing health services.  I began to see that as well as the medicine, people really needed education. There is the saying that prevention is better than cure – medicine is important but if we could educate people about how to stay healthy and prevent the diseases in the first place, then we would be able to prevent lots of suffering, especially in places where medicine isn’t available. 

I wish discussions on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) were as open as what they are in Australia. I never had conversations about SRH with my parents. In school I just got a single chapter about the female and male reproductive system.

In some parts of Nepal you can’t even talk about it. People would think we’re encouraging them to practice different things, but actually we’re trying to help them. We can’t blame them because they’ve just never had this information before. 

It’s getting better, people are more open to different things and different concepts, but it’s still a work in progress. 

What is one of the biggest challenges you notice communities you work with experience when it comes to the healthcare system in Australia?

I have my own personal experience with these things. When I first came to Australia five years ago someone told me that it cost a lot of money to go to the doctor, so I didn’t visit a GP for two years, even when I was sick. Then I checked my insurance and realised that it covers everything. So navigating the healthcare system is difficult and confusing because things are really different back home. 

There are also challenges in communication.

There are language barriers – the things I want to express in English will never be as clear as they are in Nepalese. 

People may also have the perception that they will offend practitioners if they ask them questions, so people often don’t ask.  

Health professionals often use very complex words which doesn’t help, and often aren’t very culturally competent.  

How do you think we could improve SRH healthcare access for migrant communities?

At a high level it would be good to engage health professionals and community members to work together. Consultations would be very helpful, so that health professionals know what the community needs, and the community feels more comfortable to ask questions. 

Making use of plain language. The internet can help, but it can also scare people and give them the worst-case scenarios. 

Providing simple information about how to navigate health services. 

What kind of considerations are important when working with young people from diverse backgrounds?

Young people are figuring out their identities and lots of different things in life. Listening and asking questions is the most important thing. It also helps you to find things you can connect over, whether that’s tv or sports or something else in life. 

Don’t make assumptions about what people think or believe based on their background. Engage people as individuals rather than a group. To have meaningful conversations everything needs to be two ways. 

What’s something you’ve learned from migrant and refugee young people that’s had a positive impact on you/informed your work or your life?

It’s really inspiring and motivating when you get to meet so many different people in different stages of their lives. You will see the world through a different lens. 

Young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds are so resilient, no matter what’s happened to them in the past, they are really determined to make something for themselves.  

So many people I have conversations with care so much about their communities and their families, which is really inspiring because they aren’t self-centered at all. When you think like that it helps to keep you going and gives you meaning, because life is about more than just you. 

What does taking up space mean to you?

I’m proud of being from a diverse background, but I think it’s creating an identity where our voices are heard and our needs are met without being classified as diverse or different. So we don’t have to say people are from different backgrounds, but just that they are from this community, so we stop thinking about the ways we are different and more about the ways we are the same.