By Sahar Foladi
A podcast for mental well-being exclusively in Dari has just been released for Afghans living in the South-East.
The partnership between Better Place Australia, Southern Migrant and Refugee Centre (SMRC) and South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network (SEMPHN) focused on a project in the South-East region to target better awareness in the migrant community.
Bi-cultural worker at SMRC, Mirwais Janbaz migrated from Afghanistan to Pakistan in 1996 when Taliban seized the capital Kabul.
With a Bachelor’s degree in mass communications Mr Janbaz also volunteered as an art teacher for refugees in Pakistan as well as participating and teaching martial arts.
After more than 20 years of living in Pakistan Mr Janbaz migrated to Australia in 2018.
“For the first time I got an ID like my bank account. There were lots of struggles (in Pakistan).”
Despite the struggles and challenges faced by migrants and refugees, the community remains unfamiliar with mental well-being.
“In the Afghan community, mental health is not very popular. As a refugee, people think if you feel stressed, nervous, sad, don’t like to talk to people and don’t feel good, it’s normal but it’s related to mental health.”
Mr Janbaz himself was introduced to the topic of mental health through this podcast and he believes the Afghan community will respond positively.
“To mention and learn about it was very new to me. Through this podcast I learnt the meaning of mental health, to be open about my mental health and not be shameful about it. I think people will benefit from it and they’ll they’re able to share their stories.
“Overall my experience was very good and I feel very privileged to be part of this podcast knowing someone will listen to it and learn something from my story,” Mr Janbaz said.
As well as a participant in the podcast, Mr Janbaz worked to edit the podcast.
Education community engagement lead, Renee Callander from Better Place Australia said SMRC is closely connected with the Afghan community especially in the Dandenong area.
“This is a community that’s a very brave strong and resilient, that has been through challenges, that is more and more interested in conversation around mental health and to be part of the local community in doing that.”
Ms Callander said this podcast is to initiate conversations about mental well-being within the community.
“We wanted to do in it language that could be better accessed by the people in the community. An audio and visual format would be the best because for many people written resources aren’t accessible even in their own language.”
The podcast took one year from research to production, bringing together local Afghans as participants.
“We reached out to other local organisations like we had someone from Family Life, we had someone from Foundation House, a young qualified psychologist and also a local religious leader,” Ms Callander said.
There are six episodes in the podcast and depending on community engagement and need.
“We’ll definitely look at creating more episodes looking forward,” Ms Callander said.
The podcast is one of the many projects of SMRC and Better Place Australia.
They also collaborated to form the Chay Khanna, home (made) tea, program targeted to elderly Afghan men.
