Journeying over life’s hurdles

By Shaun Inguanzo
IT’s hard enough being an immigrant or a person with disabilities; it’s even harder when you’re both.
A joint effort by the Greater Dandenong Council and the city’s multicultural and mental health groups and sporting bodies has opened the door to social integratation for disabled multicultural residents.
The Journeys program was initiated almost 18 months ago following research on how to better integrate disabled residents into leisurely activities.
Council disability planner Chris Stewart said the program involved sporting advocate Leisure Linkup approaching local sporting facilities and promoting increased membership and support as benefits if the facilities made provisions for disabled participants.
At the same time, Eastern Regional Mental Health and the South Eastern Migrant Resource Centre provided participants for the prototype program, which aimed to bring disabled people from the city’s multicultural communities out of isolation and into the social environment of sporting programs.
One of the success stories is Mohamad-Rami Abboud, a Dandenong North resident of Lebanese descent, and an asthma sufferer who found it difficult to participate in vigorous sports popular with his peers.
Mohamad-Rami said he turned to karate at Dandenong’s GKR International Karate and after six months has already progressed to yellow belt.
“I have had really bad asthma since I was born,” he said. “(Karate) is good fun and a lot of exercise.”
His mother, Randa Abboud, said the youngest of her four children sometimes couldn’t make it to karate if his severe asthma flared up, but praised GKR International Karate for its understanding.
Stories like Mohamad-Rami’s help to promote the program’s success, Mr Stewart said.
Instead of publishing the results in a “boring” report, the council opted to create a photographic exhibition, launched last Friday.
Mr Stewart said the photographs documented 30 participants’ journeys, from beginning to independence, with the pictures telling the story. Like Mohamad-Rami, many of the participants are now independent in their leisure pursuits, the ultimate goal of the program, Mr Stewart said.
The photos will be on display in the Springvale Council Chambers and will be moved around the city, including to libraries, over a two-year period.
Mr Stewart said he hoped the photos would provide inspiration for more people in similar circumstances to come forward to be launched on the road to a confident and independent lifestyle.