Our Community Our Voice – Resilience and flood recovery in Maribyrnong

On 14 October 2022, hundreds of properties in Maribyrnong were inundated when the Maribyrnong River flooded, with devastating impacts on the community, their homes, and livelihoods.

It is estimated that more than 1300 residents were affected by the disaster. By 2024, much of the flood impacted community was still in recovery mode, with some remaining displaced, or living in uninhabitable homes, while others were still navigating the insurance process.

The event has had a profound and long-lasting impact on the mental health and wellbeing on all who were affected. For many, this did not become evident until significant time had passed.

Maribyrnong’s population has a rich diversity, with 42 per cent speaking languages other than English, and 67 per cent having a parent born overseas. Many of these culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) residents were found to be not accessing local flood recovery supports, either because they were unaware of them, or reluctant to access mainstream services.

The Our Community Our Voice: Resilience and Flood Recovery in Maribyrnong project was designed by GenWest in collaboration with residents. It was designed to provide a community-based mental health wellbeing and recovery initiative. The project empowered CALD communities across Maribyrnong through mental health awareness activities, while also responding to workforce requests to increase capability to respond appropriately and safely.

The video below is one from a web series GenWest produced for the project.

Featured in the video, Asel Kebede is currently working in the community sector doing support work and also studying a Bachelor of Youth Work to further expand her knowledge. She is a very committed and hardworking person, raising her three beautiful children on her own.

The project aimed to reduce stigma and improve CALD community capability to identify need, increase skills to respond to distress, break down barriers to accessing mental health and wellbeing support, and ensure workforce are equipped to provide culturally safe mental health responses.

The project’s key objectives were to:

• present a culturally diverse campaign to increase the mental health literacy of the community and encourage and increase help-seeking
• conduct mental health and wellbeing workshops for workforce members, to increase their capability to respond to need in a culturally safe and appropriate way
• present a mental health and wellbeing program involving targeted support for CALD women and children who have been impacted by the flooding event.