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Healthy New Communities

The Healthy New Communities Project promotes physical activity and healthy eating within refugee communities settled in the Logan area (Queensland, Australia).

We do this by working in partnership with:

  • settlement agencies
  • local council
  • local businesses
  • sports clubs
  • community groups
  • education providers.

We have developed many resources to share with you. If you would like to use them, please see our terms and conditions at the end of the page.

Physical activity

A description of the Healthy New Communities physical activity projects, videos and other resources

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Nutrition and food safety

Project activities, nutrition resources, including infant feeding, food safety videos and other resources

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Food gardening

The importance of food gardening, a description of project activities, including the Elm Park Community Garden, and lists our gardening resources

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Teaching

Describes the Healthy New Communities teaching resources that we would like to share with you. There are sessions on physical activity, nutrition, food safety and food gardening

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Simple/Easy English resources

Our project has focussed on producing simple English resources. Many of our resources are audio and pictorial videos with English captioning. The rationale for choosing this format rather than translating material was:

  • Our community is very culturally diverse, with approximately 170 different ethnic identities represented (Logan City Council, 2017). In addition, people settling from some countries may have many distinct languages or dialects. This makes equitable access to translated materials impractical.
  • For emerging communities where people have settled on humanitarian visas, education may have been disrupted. This means that literacy rates in any language, especially for women, can be very low. As a result English can be the first language for literacy for some of our community members.
  • Because most adults settling in Australia from non-English speaking countries attend English classes, the resources have been designed for these settings.

These simple English resources are culturally tailored to be appropriate for people from a range of diverse backgrounds. A cartoon format has been used for many of the videos, with characters from a range of ethnicities. This has been done so that consumers don't feel that the resources have been created for one particular cultural group.

Videos

All videos have been reviewed by people from emerging communities and by English literacy teaching experts and their feedback incorporated.

The resources are appropriate for people with different levels of English competence. By pausing the videos, they can also be used with interpreters for non-English speakers. Watch our video below as an example.

Staying Healthy in Australia

Staying Healthy in Australia describes the issues relating to changes in diet and physical activity for many people settling in Australia. It also provides information on healthy eating and physical activity.

Project funding

The Healthy New Communities project is an initiative of the Logan Community Health Action Plan, which is funded by Queensland Health.

Project partners

The Healthy New Communities Reference Group includes people from the following organisations:

  • TAFE Queensland, Loganlea Campus
  • Access Community Services
  • Brisbane South PHN
  • Logan City Council
  • Multicultural Australia
  • Multilink Community Services Inc.
  • Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma (QPASTT).

Terms and conditions (of using our resources)

Metro South Health supports and encourages the dissemination and exchange of information. Metro South Health has no objection to the resources on this website material being used or reproduced, provided:

  • They are for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation.
  • They are unaltered. Local tailoring of information is encouraged within some PowerPoint presentations.
  • Metro South Health is recognised as the owner. 
Last updated 4 February 2021
Last reviewed 1 February 2021