By CASEY NEILL
TWO Greater Dandenong lifelines are coming together to better help those in need.
Springvale Community Aid and Advice Bureau (SCAAB) and Dandenong Community Advisory Bureau (DCAB) are to officially merge on Tuesday 1 September.
DCAB manager Jinny McGrath said both organisations sprang from roots embedded in the community and had stayed true to their values around advocacy, inclusion, social justice, access and equity.
They’ve each served the community for more than 40 years.
“We’re all very excited about this going forward,” Ms McGrath said.
“We just thought that it was about time. We do a number of similar things and we divide up the City of Greater Dandenong.
“It made sense in terms of long-term sustainability.
“We’ve had a decrease of about 50 per cent in our emergency relief funding from the Federal Government.
“We haven’t been able to help people as much as we have in the past.
“The volume of people through is less because we’re only helping once every four months now instead of once every three months.
“The number of people we’ve had to turn away has grown.
“It’s quite heart-breaking.”
Ms McGrath said the groups anticipated amalgamating back of house support and integrating management would reap cost savings.
“Our combined merged income will reach conservatively $4.4 million with the aim to reach $5 million by 2016,” she said.
“We’re also hoping it will increase our ability to get other funds and do fund-raising.”
The new South East Community Links will cover City of Greater Dandenong, Casey, Kingston and Monash from its current three sites in Springvale, Dandenong and Noble Park.
“We’ll be trading as SCAAB, DCAB and Youth Links so it’s easy for our clients in the transition,” Ms McGrath said.
South East Community Links will cover emergency relief, financial counselling and capability, settlement services and youth services.
