By Casey Neill
The Jesuran Wellness Centre has new toys and a new home.
The charity has shifted from Herbert Street, Dandenong, to Douglas Street, Noble Park, to form a partnership with settlement service AMES.
The aim of the move was to create a multicultural hub for the community and locals are encouraged to attend and discuss their needs.
The 900-plus students attending AMES training programs will be able to access Jesuran Wellness Centre services.
These include playgroup for families from diverse cultures, support for refugees and asylum seekers, free lunch each Thursday, fresh food from the foodbank, spoken and written English skills, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, trauma counselling, a men’s group, resume writing and classes for self-development.
Department of Human Services multicultural service officer Rick Comfort handed over toys for the playgroup children on Thursday 17 November.
They were all donations from staff members, from Ninja Turtle figures to soft toys and games.
Jesuran Wellness Centre opened in June last year after volunteers transformed a dilapidated former massage clinic into a freshly-painted, welcoming one-stop shop primarily for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees.
Director Pastor Hilda Samuel said it had provided “a fragrance of community support in the City of Greater Dandenong and beyond, with our amenities, services and love”.
She said the centre ran on donations and volunteers and was devoted to social and community welfare, development, rehabilitation and equipping refugees and others to adapt to life in Australia.
She said it was a place where those who’d escaped from misery in war zones and detention centres were loved.
“We do inner healing that deals with the trauma – the spirit, mind and body. We identify all the emotional pain,” she said.
Jesuran Wellness Centre is at Building D, 60 Douglas Street, Noble Park.
Phone 8558 8870 or 0407 125 649.
