Afghan Community COVID-19 Awareness Project
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Afghan Community COVID-19 Awareness Project Tomorrow!
June-September 2024
This report provides a summary of the completion of the community awareness project on COVID-19 targeting the Afghan community in Victoria. The project aimed to increase understanding and knowledge about COVID-19 prevention, vaccination, and community safety through a combination of digital and face-to-face engagement strategies.
We ran a six-week social media campaign and shared short video clips and informative flyers about COVID-19 and vaccination in the Dari language on our Facebook page. The videos featured Dr Reza Aloudal interviewed by Dr Hafiz Asadi. The videos were played on the big screen in our hub waiting area.
Additionally, we organized three face-to-face information sessions for our community members. The first information session was arranged at Andisha Dari school for a group of 14 senior students. The other two sessions targeted women and elderlies. Also, we designed and printed posters about COVID-19 vaccination and displayed them in our community hub in Dandenong, ensuring ongoing visibility of key health messages in a central location frequented by the Afghan community.
Despite a small budget and prevalent disinterest in the community, our multi-channel approach ensured the project reached the broadest audience possible. For instance, social media proved highly effective in reaching younger community members, while in-person sessions were more impactful for older generations.
Cancer Screening for Women Project
The Cancer Screening Awareness for Multicultural Communities Campaign 2024 is an Australian initiative that focuses on increasing the uptake of cancer screening for breast, cervical, and bowel cancers within diverse communities such as Afghan community. The campaign is part of a broader effort to reduce the impact of cancer on these populations, as data shows that people from multicultural backgrounds often have poorer health outcomes due to lower participation in screening programs.
Afghan community has been chosen one of the diverse communities amongst many others with low level of knowledge and awareness regarding cancer, and its specific details, such as risk factors, early detection methods, and the importance of screening.
Victorian Afghan Associations Network (VAAN) has been offered an opportunity alongside other frothy community organisations across Australia to took part for running a campaign -awareness regarding cancer screening specifically for the Afghan community, particularly for the women.
Asif Mellatyiar, the project coordinator stared the project in August 2024 aiming to provide comprehensive awareness about cancer screening and its early deduction for the Afghan community. The following different methods have been utilized to deliver awareness campaign for the community.
o Running in person information sessions for participants of 300 people (men and women)
o Creating short video clips in Dari/Hazaragi and Pashtu languages with community representatives
o Creating videos with professional practitioners giving awareness in Dari/Hazaragi
o Posting and promoting the short videos on social media such as Facebook aiming reaching to 20000 people in the community
o Creating flyers and poster in Dari/Hazaragi and Pashtu language
o Running information stall/tables at community events such Nawroz Festival, Casey Day Market, Youth Week Celebration event
o Having an Advisory group from professional people to give advice on cancers disease
o Placing big poster in Dari and Pashtu languages at local medical centres
The project welcomed by the community members, particularly by the women aged 30-45. Furthermore, similar campaign and project requested by the participants for longer period and suggested that the program should be accessible to all member of the community. Additionally, they asked for more educational programs and other related information sessions be held in different languages for the community members, specifically for people with low level of literacy.
Overall, the cancer screening awareness project has been one of the productive projects has been run by VAAN and, it warmly welcomed by community members. The project concluded in December 2024.