Projects will support people living in metro and regional NSW from across 29 language groups, including emerging languages Bengali and Nepali and refugee languages Kurdish Kurmanji and Ukrainian.
NSW Chief Cancer Officer and CEO, Cancer Institute NSW, Professor Tracey O’Brien, says CALD communities face significant barriers accessing cancer screening services and care, often due to language barriers, poor health literacy, trauma, and cultural stigma and beliefs.
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“Cancer remains the leading cause of death in Australia and by working together with CALD communities, we hope to truly understand and break down barriers to care to ensure all people have equitable cancer outcomes,” Professor O’Brien said.
“CALD communities have some of the lowest participation rates in Australia’s breast, bowel and cervical cancer screening programs and we need to do everything possible to remedy this.
“With more than 275 languages spoken in NSW, we recognise that a one size fits all approach won’t work. These grants will support local community groups and health services to roll out targeted initiatives that will help arm people with multilingual information to reduce their cancer risk, in a way that is aligned with their cultural beliefs.”
Chair of the Board of Settlement Council of Australia and CEO of Community Migrant Resource Centre, Melissa Monteiro said as one of the 20 grant recipients this funding will go a long way towards creating awareness and improving cancer outcomes for CALD communities.
“While cultural diversity enriches our community, it can present challenges in the delivery of cancer-related healthcare,” Ms Monteiro said.
“We are thrilled to be able to use this grant to deliver a series of interactive education sessions in Mandarin and Hindi, that will focus on the important role healthy living and screening plays in preventing bowel cancer.”
The 20 projects will soon be rolled out in areas such as Liverpool, Far West NSW, the Illawarra and Newcastle to help prevent cancer as well as deliver more timely and culturally and linguistically appropriate cancer care.
Source: Cancer Institute NSW
