DPC Funding On Priority Response During Coronavirus (COVID-19)

The CALD communities Taskforce, through Multicultural Affairs at the Department of Premier and Cabinet had a project to provide funding to enable multicultural organizations to partner with the government to deliver emergency relief and directly engage with communities impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The purpose of this funding is to provide immediate and crucial support to the multicultural community organization to enable engagement and stronger connections with their communities during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Based on the community’s needs, Didi Bahini Samaj Victoria (DBSV) had started providing emergency relief support with the help of local churches and councils since last week of March and about 500 students were able to receive support before we received COVID impact support from DPC. As an effort from our team during this COVID crisis, we were able to secure some funding from the Victorian Government to continue our work to help the vulnerable and most affected members of our community.

To start with the project plan, we took a request from you to be able to help you based on the project plan through Google form (need identification) and 1045 had registered within a period of 10 days. Based on the guidelines of funding and plan, we reached out to more people as well as provided various forms of supports, such as:

Sharing available resources and referrals

Provision of food relief and sanitizing items to vulnerable population

Health and wellbeing (online sessions on meditation, yoga and building resilience on mental health)

Capacity building and linkages

The interaction programs were organised as per feedback from Google form and with a particular aim to support the needy in any way possible to facilitate service as required. Some sessions organized via zoom were as follows:

Interaction Program (to understand their current issues and for them to know about DBSV programs for students, and recognize areas of support DBSV can provide)

Yoga, Pranayama, and Meditation (Every Thursday for 8 weeks – aimed at improving physical and mental wellbeing)

Mental Health Support on 30 Oct 2020 (aimed at facilitating the service access and providing opportunity to directly interact with the mental health professional during the session)

How Northern Community Legal Centre can support you? on 06 Nov 2020 (to explore how the Northern community Legal center can support international students)

Therefore, the individuals and families who reached out to us through the online form accessed emergency relief (provision of food relief and sanitizing items to vulnerable population) along with information, education, and linkages to the other support system and groups. Through DPC funding, we were able to support additional 1045 students.

Thank you for your support.