By Sahar Foladi
A group of young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds have developed online resources to empower their peers to take control of their own health.
As part of the Youth Affairs Council Victoria’s (YACV) Multicultural Communications Outreach Program, three teams of young health ambassadors are spreading awareness on preventative health care.
Hanienah Husna is a psychology honours student at CQUniversity with a Bachelor of Psychological Science at Deakin University.
She was selected as the Youth Ambassador Representative for Victoria by Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network (MYAN).
“I’m specifically involved in the sexual health area. There’s an inter-generational taboo around sexual awareness in my community.
“I believe that many of them coming from a migrant and refugee background haven’t been taught to think critically about the information we consume.
“We are given the ease and accessibility in social media so I see this as an opportunity to encourage positive dialogues about sexual health.“
As a Malaysian Australian, Ms Husna said her background helps in her work with culturally diverse communities.
“I think having people that look like you and sharing the same background makes the conversation much easier. So that’s why everything I do is important and I hope it’s seen that way as well.”
According to Ms Husna those from multicultural communities tend to turn to others outside their families when it comes to sexual health matters as they feel uncomfortable.
“This work allows me to share info with young people instead of them getting information from unverified sources. This project allowed us to be culturally centred and age appropriate.”
Alfred Abou Eissa also worked with YACV as one of the health ambassadors in the skin cancer prevention field.
“Through my studies and losing family friends to cancer I have learned a lot about skin cancer. We cannot sit there and do nothing about this issue and see people pass away.”
Mr Abou Eissa migrated to Australia from Syria in 2017 and studies in biology and sciences at University of Melbourne.
“To me knowledge is considered useless if not applied, therefore this program was a great opportunity to apply my knowledge and look at skin cancer from a closer perspective.”
According to World Cancer Research Fund International, Australia was ranked number one in the world in both melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer rates.
During his works Mr Abou Eissa said the community responded positively and took the skin cancer checks.
“For us coming from different countries we have been through a lot of sufferings including escaping from war, corruption, disasters and poverty therefore those diverse communities don’t see a skin cancer check as important as it actually is.
“They believe that they’ve have been through much harder difficulties so cancer is not considered difficult or scary in the community.”
Common barriers identified throughout the project were stigma around accessing healthcare, lack of health literacy, past negative experience in healthcare and uncertainty around costs.
The concerns were responded to through the creation of easy to understand digital resources addressed at young people, shared through YACV’s social media and website.
