Welcome to 2024! We hope you have had a lovely start to the year and have been enjoying the sunshine and warm weather ☀️.

We would like to express our heart-felt gratitude and admiration of our 118 Volunteer Healthcare Professionals who facilitated a session in 2023, and those who supported The Water Well Project in other ways 🥰. Thank you, we wouldn't be where we are today without you.

In February we are getting back into gear with our first sessions of 2024 starting to take place! Be sure to check out the upcoming Health Education Sessions and sign up here!

Scroll down to find out what else has been happening...

 
 
 
 

Volunteer Induction dates 2024 

We have a number of Volunteer Induction Events coming up in the next few months. Please pass on to your Healthcare Professional friends and colleagues who might like to volunteer with us!

 

We welcome new volunteers from a range of healthcare professions, including (but not limited to) nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, pharmacists, occupational therapists, final year medical students and more! 🩺💊🦴

 
 

We have a new CEO!

We are thrilled to announce that Rachel Connor has been appointed as the new CEO of The Water Well Project 👋.

Rachel is an exceptional leader with a diverse background spanning the not-for-profit, corporate, government, and consulting sectors. Her most recent accomplishment includes her impactful tenure as CEO of a charitable organisation dedicated to supporting families and carers in hardship through provision of holidays and programs.

Rachel is committed to our mission of improving health outcomes, and bridging the gap between health care professionals and communities from migrant, refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. Welcome Rachel!

 
 

Volunteer of the Year Awards 2023 Winners 🏆

This year The Water Well Project launched our inaugural Volunteer of the Year awards, with the winners announced at our End of Year Celebration event on 14th December last year. 

The 2023 Session Superstar Award recognises a volunteer that facilitated among the highest number of health education sessions through the year than all other volunteers. This person engaged beautifully with community participants, shared knowledge with warmth and respect, and demonstrated an eagerness to learn from participants as well.

The New Volunteer of the Year Award appreciates a volunteer who started facilitating health education sessions during 2023. The award recognises a new volunteer who facilitated multiple sessions, sharing knowledge, stories and learnings sensitively and respectfully with session participants.

The Save the Day Volunteer of the Year Award is awarded to the volunteer that consistently stepped in when needed throughout the year. This might be when a session couldn't be filled by volunteers, or showing flexibility at the last minute to meet a community request.

See below for our 2023 winners...

Congratulations to all of our amazing volunteers, and in particular to our finalists and winners. Finalists and winners have been awarded with a certificate of achievement and a Water Well Project lapel pin.

 

Collecting Feedback 📝

As we start sessions again in 2024, please remember to allow 5 minutes at the end of your session to collect participant feedback, using either paper forms or the QR code. Please also complete your own volunteer feedback survey. This feedback is a requirement of our funding, and is crucial to enable us to keep our health education sessions free for community groups. Thanks!

 
 

150 Sessions - Congrats Tracy! 🎉 👏

 Our amazing National Health Education Manager Tracy reached an incredible milestone this month, facilitating her 150th session! An incredible feat in under 2 years at The Water Well Project. She has made such a great impact for migrant, refugee and asylum seeker communities across Melbourne, as well as mentoring and supporting many fellow healthcare professionals throughout their volunteer journey. Thank you Tracy!

 
 

Lovely testimonials to share with you 💚

"It was great to discuss such an important topic with a group so eager to increase their knowledge. Their questions were thoughtful and prompted an engaging conversation. They were clearly pleased to learn how to better take care of themselves and their families."
~ Volunteer Healthcare Professional, MiCare Chinese Community Group, Diabetes session.

"I learned so much about the topic as a whole from doing the session and really consolidated my knowledge."
~ Volunteer Healthcare Professional, St Albans Primary School, Asthma session.

"We wouldn't be able to achieve such great results without the Water Well Project. Your contribution was very much appreciated by all participants."
~
Community Representative, Ethnic Community Services Cooperative, Mental Health and Wellbeing session.

"Water Well Project is such a great resource to have for community and the wealth of knowledge they have on offer is fantastic, I will definitely be engaging them in the future. It being free also helps community groups who don't have funding, so that's amazing."
~
Community Representative, Oakgrove Connecting Mums, Healthy Eating and Nutrition session.

 
 

Looking back on 2023 🥰

A message from Tracy Douglas, National Health Education Manager:

2023 has been a year of growth and change, and in some ways a defining period for The Water Well Project. We've broken our own records in terms of number of health education sessions, and the number of community members who have participated in those sessions.

But more important than the numbers is our story – who we are as The Water Well Project, and what we stand for. And that's where all of you come in. Each one of you plays a pivotal role in our mission to work alongside migrant, refugee and asylum seeker communities to improve their access to timely health information and healthcare services.

To demonstrate, I'd love to share a story with you. It's about a community group called Women's Friendship Café that comprises a vibrant and diverse group of women from various backgrounds including Indian, Afghan, African, South-East Asian and European, who gather, along with their young children, for social connection, activities and learning.

They were referred to The Water Well Project through Wellsprings for Women, where we have facilitated many sessions over the past few years. An original grant from one of our LGA grantors – City of Greater Dandenong – enabled us to facilitate sessions with Wellsprings. These LGA grants embed us in local communities, and expand our networks and reach within those communities. Our relationship with Wellsprings led to our new connection with Women's Friendship Café. This type of grassroots community referral has been driving our growth over the past year, and also tells us that our model is working in these communities.

Elaine is the community representative at Women's Friendship Café. Community representatives are the connection point between migrant, refugee and asylum seeker community groups and The Water Well Project. They liaise with us about the knowledge gaps and needs in their communities, select the health topics that are most needed, and work alongside our healthcare professionals to improve health and wellbeing in communities.

Over the past few months, the women in Women's Friendship Cafe have engaged in thoughtful and lively conversations, sharing their personal stories and wisdom while exploring health education topics including Child Health and Development, Women's Health, Wellness and Vaccinations, Navigating the Australian Healthcare System, Extreme Weather, Disasters and Your Health, and Sun Safety.

Of course, our donors and pro-bono supporters enable us to facilitate these sessions. For example, Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation provided generous funding to develop our Climate and Health Resilience Series, enabling Women's Friendship Café to engage in conversations about keeping themselves and their families safe and healthy during extreme weather events such as heatwaves and bushfire smoke. 

Meanwhile, our Federal Government Health Literacy grant has enabled the development of materials so Women's Friendship Café can explore how to use medicines safely, including the importance of vaccinations for their health and wellbeing. Then organisations such as 10x10 Philanthropy and others have provided funding for buying props like the different types of contraceptives that were handed around during Women's Friendship Café's recent Women's Health session. While Pressroom Philanthropy has provided free printing of take-home materials so our session participants can remember and act on the information they have learned. And Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) has provided free interpreters to support the Dari speaking women in the group.

Government and philanthropic grants often enable us to focus on a specific health area such as Women's Health, or Mental Health and Wellbeing, or Child Health and Development; or on a specific geographical area such as Hobart or Melbourne or a local LGA community.

Emily, Lisa and Medina are the volunteer healthcare professionals who have facilitated health education sessions at Women's Friendship Café, along with our Victorian Health Educator Zoe. These volunteers have been joined by another 123 healthcare professionals who have freely given their time and expertise to facilitate health conversations with migrant, refugee and asylum seeker community groups in 2023.

Emily, Lisa and Medina are 3 of 55 new volunteers who facilitated their first session with The Water Well Project this year. Emily and Lisa are also 2 of 97 potential volunteers who were inducted during 2023 with thanks to our Volunteer Engagement Team, one of several volunteer teams such as Marketing and Communications, Digital, Resources and others, that work behind the scenes to enable The Water Well Project's engagement with communities.

And this year we were honoured to receive the Victorian Public Healthcare Award for Excellence in Culturally Diverse Health. Awards such as this are the culmination of partnerships with migrant, refugee and asylum seeker communities, health networks, healthcare professionals and other volunteers, donors and pro bono supporters.

We are The Water Well Project – a collaboration of diverse people and organisations that together are making a difference in the knowledge and confidence of migrant, refugee and asylum seeker communities to advocate for their own health and wellbeing.

So thank you for journeying with us in 2023 – you're an integral part of what we do and we're grateful you're with us on this journey. 

 

Donate today to give the gift of health literacy to people from migrant, refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds.

Donate here!
 

Signing off for another month, your newsletter editors,

Dr Emma Thompson and Dr Lucy Steele

 
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The Water Well Project    | ABN: 38 177 188 057 |  www.thewaterwellproject.org

PO Box 6218
Vermont South 3133 

 

 

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