Our Story
What is the Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative?
The Collaborative intends to work at the national level to give a voice to the broad health and wellbeing needs, including research, of Australia’s culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
The Collaborative will represent the voices of wide-ranging CALD health and wellbeing issues at the national level through a formal membership structure which includes CALD consumers, together with health and wellbeing services, health and social care practitioners, researchers, and organisations and institutions for whom the primary focus is health for CALD populations. The Collaborative welcomes as members ‘mainstream’ services and organisations with a significant commitment to CALD health and wellbeing, and will enter into partnerships with relevant national organisations. The title ‘Collaborative’ is significant as an indication as to how members will work – that is, in genuine collaboration on agreed priority areas, drawing on each other’s areas of focus and expertise on particular issues.
The Collaborative acknowledges the important work of RHeaNA, FASSTT, SCoA, RCOA and the Migrant and Refugee Health Partnership and looks forward to supporting and promoting their activities.
Read our Foundation Document
For more information, read the Foundation Document and a one page overview on how the Collaborative works.
Our People
The Group has been formed to guide the initial establishment of the Collaborative. Members reflect the membership categories of the Collaborative: consumers; health and wellbeing services; practitioners; and researchers.
Over time an ongoing governance structure will be developed for endorsement by members.
I am a co-founder of World Wellness Group, a multicultural primary health service in Brisbane with the mission to reduce multicultural health inequity. I have a background in health promotion and most of my career has focused on multicultural health. Tackling health inequity in the Australian health system is a big focus of my work and I am particularly interested in multicultural health data collection, research, culturally appropriate health models and multicultural health promotion. My expertise is grounded in health service delivery and lived experience. I am honoured to Co-Chair the Collaborative as there is so much potential for our collective effort to bring the voice of multicultural health experience to the public domain and to influence health policy.
I am the Manager of the Centre for Culture, Ethnicity & Health (CEH), a program of North Richmond Community Health, that works towards improving the health and wellbeing of people from refugee and migrant backgrounds. With a background in youth work, sexual assault, and women’s health I joined the Victorian Department of Human Services in 1998. There, I began working in the family violence and homelessness areas, and later managed the Primary Health Programs team comprising women’s health, counselling in community health, family planning, language services and school nursing programs.
Equitable access to services has been a theme throughout my career and this interest continues through my work at CEH and its programs. Since being appointed Manager in February 2021, I have overseen a restructure of CEH and worked to refresh relationships with government and non-government agencies.
I am keen to join and actively support the Collaborative as I believe it will add significant weight to advocacy to government for additional resourcing for research and service delivery funds. It will also serve as the primary mechanism for articulation of CALD consumers view of existing pathways to care and options for system reform. It is an exciting opportunity for engaging with researchers, practitioners, consumers and agencies to collaborate and create a new and exciting vision for multicultural health service delivery in Australia.
I have dedicated 25 years to advance multicultural health such as being involved in the Management and Steering Committees of the NSW Government Multicultural Health Communication Services of NSW (advocating for cultural appropriate rather than linguistically correct translation of health information)
I am on the Management Committee of the Australian Chinese Medical Association (ACMA), a trustee and past president of the ACMA Charitable Trust and CanRevive Charitable Foundation. I host a popular weekly community radio health talk show, write weekly health columns in community newspapers, and appear on community TV health programs. I contributed to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the Registration for Chinese Medicine Practitioners in 2005 and more recently the RACMA Reference Group and the CASS Care Working Party for the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. I was appointed as the NSW Health Pathology endorsed COVID-19 educator for the Chinese Australian Community, established a genetic disease (familial hypercholesterolaemia) support service for Arabic-speaking communities in 2004 (Winner of 2005 NSW Premier’s Gold Award as the best service delivered in NSW. CASS Care delivers age, disability and child care care, services to Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian and other communities. CanRevive delivers cancer support services to Cantonese- and Mandarin-speaking communities. I was acknowledged as a “Pandemic Hero” in 2020 and an “Unsung Hero” in 2021 for my contribution to COVID-19 education. Professionally, I am a trained pathologist, Director of Core Pathology and Clinical Chemistry Services of NSW Health Pathology West Sector and Director of Westmead Hospital Lipid & Cardiovascular Risk Assessment Clinic.
Academically, I am an associate professor at Western Sydney University and associated with the Vascular Research Centre at Westmead Hospital.
I was born in Hungary and came to Australia as a refugee in 1957, after the Hungarian revolution in Hungary in 1956.
As a registered nurse, I was primarily involved in aged care and I was Commonwealth Nursing Officer for the Department of Health and Ageing
I’m a past President of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of WA. I’m the Chair and founder of the Hungarian Golden Village and Cultural Centre Inc, and founder and was Chair of the Health Consumers Action Group WA Inc.
Born in Iraq, I came to Australia, via Syria, as a refugee at the age of 13 in 2003. I lived in Iran and Syria and I speak Arabic and Farsi.
In September 2015 I was appointed as the inaugural CEO of Welcome to Australia, an organisation dedicated to cultivating a culture of welcome towards refugees and migrants in our nation.
I was appointed as FECCA CEO in 2018, having held positions on the Board, first as the Youth Chair and later as Secretary.
Through my refugee journey I am passionate about and committed to the success of a multicultural Australia. Cultural diversity makes us richer as a society and the voices of new and emerging communities must be heard and represented.
FECCA continues to play an important role in the national response to COVID-19 but there is still so much to do to address inequities in our broader health system and improve health and wellbeing outcomes for our communities. I am excited at the level of interest and support shown by so many organisations and individuals in the new Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative.
I was born in Venezuela (with a Chinese father and Venezuelan mother) and have been in Australia for 23 years. I am fluent in Spanish and learnt to speak English after my arrival. Currently, I am the Secretary of the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum and was involved in the founding of the local Multicultural Women's Forum. I advocate and volunteer my time to stand up for the cultural and linguistic diversity community in the ACT, particularly in relation to health services. I bring my personal experience and knowledge to enrich my work within the multicultural community sector.
I am an infectious diseases and general physician, currently Head of General Internal Medicine at Western Health.
I have a strong interest in the impact of intersecting social inequities on health and wellbeing, particularly chronic illness, bloodborne viral infections and sexual and reproductive health.
I joined the Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative as a way to push for a sustained and systematic commitment to address the complex problem of structural racism in the Australian health care system, which is detrimental to communities, patients and health care workers.
My other main interest is martial arts, particularly capoeira, jujitsu and kali.
I am the Monash Warwick Professor of Health and Social Care Improvement and Implementation Science, and Head of the Health and Social Care Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. My work focuses on establishing long-term collaborative implementation science research and education/training programs in health and social care improvement. I have worked extensively across the health, community service, and educational sectors; in so doing, my aim is to bridge the gap between health and social care research, education and practice and break down the silos that are preventing collective impact and better outcomes for children, adolescents, adults and families. I am a member of the CALD Communities COVID-19 National Health Advisory Group and the CALD Communications Working Group, and a member of the Board of Directors for the Global Implementation Society.