By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
PARTNERS didn’t so much break bread but shared a breakfast banquet of fruits, zesty juices, yoghurt and muesli slices at the launch of Greater Dandenong Council’s community health and wellbeing plan at Dandenong Market.
Representatives of the plan’s partners such as Monash Health, South Eastern Melbourne Medicare Local, Southern Migrant and Refugee Centre, Victoria Police and benevolent societies ate together just as they had collaborated on the plan.
Public health advocate Professor Rob Moodie of the University of Melbourne endorsed the plan for its holistic, preventive view of health – one that strives for its citizens to live “healthy, rewarding and socially inclusive lives”.
“A healthy and safe community is the core to everything we do – (that) is a very powerful statement for a council to make,” Professor Moodie said.
The self-described “preventologist” said a community was safe when its residents are connected, and vice versa.
“You can’t have economically viable communities that aren’t safe and connected.”
He also highlighted the collaborative nature of the plan.
“When we do things well in Australia, it is when we do things together.”
