People born in a non-English speaking countries with a disability are not receiving the assistance they need compared to Australians with a disability.
Addressing this need Settlement Services International (SSI) has developed culturally competent entry points to the disability services system to help marginalised groups gain access through a multilingual national Hub hotline and website.
The Hub provides easily accessible information on disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in 14 languages: Arabic, Assyrian, Bangla, Cantonese, Farsi, Greek, Italian, Macedonian, Mandarin, Nepali, Spanish, Tamil, Urdu and Vietnamese.
“Providing access to information is key to enabling people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds to become active players in the disability space,” said Karen Bevan, SSI General Manager Service Delivery – Community.
“Whether it’s the friendly bilingual staff operating the hotline or the informative website, the Multilingual Disability Hub continues to help bridge this gap for many people with disability,” she said.
People wanting to access information in their language have the choice of calling the hotline, which is operated by trained bilingual staff, or visiting the website, which contains ‘in-language’ information about disability and the NDIS.
