The WoMHEn (Workforce of Multicultural Women) Project commenced on 18 December 2020 with funding received from the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health (MCWH). The Project focused on good health promotion within migrant communities, with a particular emphasis on promoting COVID safe messaging.
WoMHEn Project - round one
Supporting women from migrant and refugee communities
Our team worked with with Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health, Gender Equity Victoria and women’s health services across the state to counter vaccine hesitancy and misinformation in our culturally diverse communities.
WHISE employed four Multicultural Outreach Educators, with Tamil, Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi as community languages. They undertook the MCWH Multilingual Women’s Health Education Training Course developed by MCWH as part of the project and learnt the relevant knowledge and skills to deliver health-related education to women from migrant and refugee backgrounds.
With the aim to improve vaccine uptake with our CALD communities in the Southern Metropolitan Region of Melbourne, the WHISE team delivered numerous sessions in Tamil, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.
82 post session evaluation survey responses were received relating to improved confidence in getting the Covid19 vaccine after attending an information session.
This phase of the WoMHEn Project concluded on 30 November 2021.
SOCIAL VALUE IMPACT:
Project: The WoMHEn Project
Net Social Benefit to Community $1,517,241
Directly delivered to 86 Participants with an estimated impact for 12 months
Benefit Cost Ratio 8.8
Social Impact as calculated through Australia for the WoMHEn Project. The values used in this cost benefit analysis have been derived using the wellbeing valuation method from data gathered through the HILDA (Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia) and Journeys Home Survey.
WoMHEn Project - round two
Building confidence in migrant and refugee communities
The second phase of the WOMHen project commenced on the 22 January 2022 and continued until 24 June 2022 under several funding streams including the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health, and Gender Equity Victoria, who were the agency leads on this project.
WHISE employed four Bi-Lingual Health Educators with the objective to build COVID-19 vaccine confidence through communities regarding the booster vaccines and vaccines for children, and to disseminate current public health and safety advice in relation to COVID-19 while identifying and addressing barriers to vaccine literacy, vaccine hesitancy and service navigation of migrant and refugee women.
Delivering sessions in language (Mandarin, Greek, Punjabi, Hindi, Tamil and simple English) proved to have significant benefits in enabling migrant women to understand content with reduced barriers, whilst receiving information in a culturally appropriate and sensitive manner.
During this period, 30 health education sessions were carried out, reaching and supporting 541 migrant and refugee women.
Along with building COVID-19 vaccine confidence, health educators also carried out sessions on:
- Mental Health and Wellbeing
- Menstrual Health
- Active Living, Healthy Eating and Vitamin D
- Safe and Healthy Relationships (prevention of violence against women)
- Women’s Health Screening (breast cancer, cervical cancer and bowel cancer)
SOCIAL VALUE IMPACT:
Project: WoMHEn Project - round two
Net Social Benefit to Community $2,494,339
Directly delivered to 366 Participants with an estimated impact for 12 months
Benefit Cost Ratio 14.34
Social Impact as calculated through the Australia Social Value Bank for the delivery of the WoMHEn Project - round two.
The values used in this cost benefit analysis have been derived using the wellbeing valuation method from data gathered through the HILDA (Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia) and Journeys Home Survey.