Community Care

Anglican Aid and Campsie Anglicans are providing support to new migrants within the ethnically diverse suburb of Campsie.

With over 150 different languages are spoken in this suburb, one of the most effective and practical ways to serve the needs of the community is by providing language learning assistance. Over the past 10 years, the New Settler project has expanded and refined its ‘Help with English Program’. Presently, five ESL classes take place on Friday mornings from 9.45am-12. Conversation Classes occur on Mondays 10am-12, Wednesdays 10am-12 and Fridays 7.30-9pm.

This project aims not just to assist new migrants with their English language competence but also to help them adjust to new surroundings and make friendships and connections in the community.

Through the New Settler Project, people like Helen are being welcomed into their new Sydney community and assisted through the difficult adjustment process. Helen, originally from China, has been attending English lessons at the New Settler Project for the past three years. She has always been a hard-working student and her English has steadily approved over time. In fact, her language skills are now so good that Helen has found paid work, and can be found smiling and speaking to customers at a local grocery store.
 

According to SANE Australia, approximately one in five Australians is affected by mental illness every year.

Mental illness is a major cause of social isolation and marginalisation in Australia.

The aim of the Riverwood Lunch and Leisure Club, a joint project of Riverwood-Punchbowl Anglican Church and Anglican Aid, is to reduce this isolation for people living with a mental illness in Riverwood and surrounding areas.

The project enables men and women who have been socially isolated by long-term psychiatric disabilities to make new friends, meet interesting people and have fun with others who also live with mental illness. The program runs for 4-5 hours on a Wednesday, providing a meal, space for safe social contact and opportunities to participate in recreational activities. Activities include board games, trivia, bus trips, picnics, craft and cooking.

Volunteers at the Lunch and Leisure Club are excited to see God working in the lives of its members.Throughout her life, Brenda* has battled with drug addiction, self-harm and suicidal feelings. Since coming to the Lunch and Leisure Club, Brenda decided to go to rehab for a month. The love and support of both her family and the group have helped her feel positive about her life again. Grace flows through Brenda as she now assists other members of the group when they're having a 'down' day.

* Not her real name

Anglican Aid works together with St Mark’s Anglican Sadleir to provide support to members of this ethnically diverse community. The project aims to bring the community together by building friendships across ethnic backgrounds, providing a counselling service, activities such as a community BBQ, and running community multi-cultural events and seminars. Events include the development of life skills, such as coping with depression, marriage counselling, a specialised counselling service for women, and leadership development. The project uses St Mark’s church community and facilities as a base for the project. The program builds on already existing strong relationships with Anglicare Welfare Service Sadleir, Chesalon Day Centre Liverpool and Anglicare Op Shop Miller. 

According to a 2011 report conducted by Pricewaterhousecoopers, Australians living with a disability have a poorer quality of life than those living anywhere else in the developed world. Out of 27 OECD countries, Australia ranked 27th in living standards for people with disabilities.

Living with a disability affects not just a person’s physical and economic activities but also their social and emotional wellbeing.

Through the Friendship Group in Summer Hill, Anglican Aid and St Andrew’s Summer Hill reach out to members of the local community who live with chronic mental illness.

The group strives to show support, joy and hope to its members, many of whom have developmental disabilities and are living within communal boarding house environments. The program involves two weekly activity sessions held within a safe and caring environment. Outside these sessions, volunteer carers visit members of the Friendship Group at their homes, or in hospital when necessary. One part-time (paid) coordinator is supported by volunteers who lead and assist with activities.
 

Rough Edges and the Community Assistance and Partnership Program (CAPP) are initiatives of St John’s Darlinghurst, supported by Anglican Aid, to serve in the King’s Cross community.

Over the two days and four nights per week it’s open, the Rough Edges cafe serves over 100 people who are disadvantaged, homeless or at risk of homelessness. Relying on donations of food from local businesses, Rough Edges provides food, a safe lounge-room style environment, television and games. Hospitality and relationships with patrons are at the heart of the vision of Rough Edges.

During daytime sessions, Rough Edges cafe doubles as a waiting room for CAPP which provides clients with 40 minute appointments for counselling, financial and practical assistance. While they wait, clients can have a coffee, something to eat and a chat with Rough Edges volunteers.

Recently, Rough Edges partnered with the Milk Crate Theatre to offer patrons acting lessons with professional actors. At the end of each series of classes, patrons have participated in a play put on at Edward Eager Lodge. These and other community development programs such as community lunches are designed to enhance the wellbeing of community members.

Rough Edges also engages in a range of advocacy activities on behalf of their patrons, seeking to link them with relevant government and non-government organisations and raise awareness and understanding in the broader community regarding issues commonly faced by patrons.

Check out their website: http://www.roughedges.org/

St John’s Glebe and Anglican Aid are working together to develop an integrated and evidence-based community service to all residents of Glebe, operating from the new St John’s Centre. Glebe Community Partnerships (GCP) uses multiple programs to address specific needs in the local community, enabling individuals and families to adopt positive change in their lives.

This project builds on the success of the St John’s Glebe Assistance and Partnership Program (GAPP), which provided emergency food relief, no interest loans and a drop-in centre in Glebe. Other new initiatives include: Torres Strait and Pacific Islander cultural events, dance classes, cooking classes, community gardens, pre-school music classes, play groups, GROW support groups for people with mental illness and the provision of a trained psychologist and marriage counsellor.

In the second half of 2011, GCP assisted 216 clients, delivered 148 food parcels, gave away 29 Christmas hampers and approved 10 new no-interest loans.

GCP is helping people like Rob who had been homeless for several months before he went to the St John’s Centre. Rob attended GAPP looking for friendship and, as volunteers got to know him, was recommended for the counselling program. Over the weeks, his self-esteem grew and, with the support of GAPP, Rob soon applied for housing. When Rob’s housing application was successful, GCP volunteers helped him move and made sure he had all the essential household items.
 

Anglican Aid and St Michael’s Surrey Hills have partnered together to give the marginalised people of Surrey Hills a free hot breakfast every Sunday morning.

From 8-9am every week for the past 10 years, between 50 and 70 people have gone to St Michael's to get a hearty meal, friendship and a taste of God’s grace. Homeless people, pensioners and students – all struggling to make ends meet – are among those who share breakfast and are invited to ‘Brekky Church’ afterwards. Newcomers receive gift packs with a welcome pamphlet and essential items. Partnerships with local restaurants and businesses have enabled Bread of Life to serve fresh and interesting food.
 

If you were passing by the community room at Elphinstone Road Housing Department Block on a Thursday afternoon, you would likely see a big ‘BOOKWORMS’ banner and hear the low murmur of children reading aloud.

Bookworms is a joint community/church initiative run in partnership between St Paul’s South Coogee and Anglican Aid. Bookworms aims to improve the literacy of K-6 children living in public housing in the South Coogee area.

Volunteers give children one-one-one reading time, generally in two 20 minute sessions, as well as facilitating games that improve literacy and communication such as Bananagrams, Upwords and Uno. Long-term relationships with the volunteers enable children to practice reading and develop literacy skills in a safe and friendly environment.

Jenny Redmond from St Paul’s Anglican Church co-ordinates the group with the help of lots of volunteers. Jenny says “I love coming to bookworms because the kids are so great. They have fun, but they work hard at their reading too. It’s really satisfying to see them improve.”

With Glenquarie Church, Anglican Aid provides emergency and crises accommodation to those most at risk of homelessness in the Glenquarie community and surrounds. Two houses are being provided and the program has Case Managers assigned to each house, who work alongside the client over an intensive 12 months. They provide support, training and information that will allow the client to successfully transition from emergency accommodation to more permanent accommodation with the right support services in place for their future.

The Healthy Families, Healthy Community project is designed to support families in the Pitt Town area and, consequently, to improve community life for all. In particular, the project aims to combat family breakdown and to assist struggling families by providing practical and therapeutic care, information on social issues and a reliable social and community network for families.

Anglican Aid has partnered with the Pitt Town Parish in developing a social enterprise café as a community hub where people can meet and receive useful information and access to services. These include marriage courses, parenting courses, a mental illness support group and a budgeting course which uses the CAP money program template. Through the cafe, food assistance and hampers are also distributed to individuals and families in need.
The project also commits to teaching members of the church community the skills they need in order to be able to respond to local community needs. Currently, 26 trained volunteers assist with the running of the cafe, and a further 15 with other aspects of the HFHC project.

HFHC recently organised home visits for a single father who was struggling to care for his disabled daughter, deal with his own pain management issues and make ends meet. The situation had left him housebound, feeling stressed and unable to cope with leaving the house. After a few visits and some food assistance to help him get by, the man accepted an invitation to come into the cafe on a Saturday and, later on, to come to church. The support provided by HFHC has given him the courage to seek professional support. He’s grateful for the help of HFHC, which has left him feeling more able to manage his health and stress levels.
 

The city of Auburn is one of the most ethnically diverse communities in Sydney, with people from over 100 Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) countries. The most significant community groups are the Islamic (mostly Turkish, Lebanese and African), Chinese speaking (mainly from Chinese and Indo-Chinese backgrounds) and Korean speaking communities.

The City of Auburn is also has lower-than-average income and English literacy levels, and a higher-than-average percentage of the local population relying on welfare support.

Auburn Community Care and Development (ACCD) is an independently registered not-for-profit parish-based association aimed at demonstrating the love of Christ and his church for the wider community, especially focusing on the Chinese speaking community in Sydney and other migrant communities in Auburn. Anglican Aid and St Thomas’s Auburn work together to provide practical and meaningful community care and development programs, enhancing the outreach ministry of the local parish by working along-side staff and volunteers of the local parish. The project also partners also with other organisations such as Auburn council, Anglicare and TAFE to ensure the provision of better services to the NESB communities in Auburn Local Government Area.

ACCD has designed programs to address five areas of long-term need: NESB migrant women and children, elderly NESB migrants, community education, community development and advocacy.

In 2011, two of the elderly ladies participating in weekly English as a Second Language (ESL) classes faced life-threatening situations – one requiring a serious medical procedure and the other suffering severe brain haemorrhaging. Both came through unscathed and were able to use their newly acquired language skills to deal with difficult circumstances. As ACCD volunteers said, “We bless God for using us in this regard!”
 

All Saints Community Care (ASCC) aims to provide effective Emergency Relief assistance to those in the Wollongong community who are financially vulnerable, especially in times of crisis.

In partnership with Anglican Aid, All Saints Community Care provides material aid through an Emergency Relief centre, open five days per week. In the second half of 2011, over 900 clients booked appointments with ASCC staff, receiving rental assistance, food hampers, vouchers for energy and water bills, assistance in paying for medical prescriptions, fuel, groceries, and recycled clothing and home-wares. Trained volunteers provide crisis support, advocacy and referrals.

All Saints Community Care aims to achieve a sustainable outcome for people in need by fostering self-reliance and community engagement in clients.

A few years ago, ASCC assisted Susan in getting a job and feeding her children while her new income paid off mounting bills. She said, ‘It took me weeks to get on my feet. I got emotional when I told the woman about what it meant to me, and I've never forgotten it.’ Recently, when Susan recently brought a struggling friend into ASCC, she was overjoyed to see similar results. ‘He seems uplifted and motivated and every time we talk he thanks me.’ Susan wrote a brief letter to ASCC, thanking them for their support: ‘I feel like we've won a small win against one of the injustices in the world, and I wanted to share it with you.’