It's Harmony Week!
Established to celebrate Australia’s cultural diversity and coinciding with the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, this week provides the platform to acknowledge the contributions of multicultural communities to Australian society.
42% of Uniting AgeWell’s employees were born overseas. Our team now includes representation from 363 countries who speak 38 languages. Reflecting our core values of Inclusion this week we will be celebrating the varied journeys and career pathways of just some of our valued employees and we encourage you to read their stories below.
Celebrating diversity at Uniting AgeWell
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Roshna Bista
Registered Nurse Roshna Bista is pretty clear about what she’s going to teach her young son one day.
“I’ll be teaching him the best of the values from my home country of Nepal – and from Australia,” she says. “So that’s the wonderful way that we have blended families in Nepal where three generations live under one roof. And of course the freedom to be whatever you want to be in this land of opportunity that is Australia.”
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Manpreet Mangat
Indian-born Registered Nurse Manpreet Mangat says a lot of what motivates her are the “warm feels” she gets from helping older people.
That’s the reason Manpreet got into aged care in the first place. Making older people, like her parents, happy and comfortable. “My parents are still in India, but each and every day I am very aware that the older people I look after are someone’s beloved Mum or Dad. And I give them the same care that I would like my elderly parents to have.”
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Joyce Thuku
Meet Joyce Thuku who travelled across the world to be the best version of herself in her chosen career.
Joyce started working in both private and public hospital and community settings, and then a year ago joined Uniting AgeWell. “I’ve always had an affinity for older people,” Joyce explains. “I have a good rapport with them, I feel a huge amount of compassion and empathy for them.”
She feels incredibly valued at Uniting AgeWell and is proud to work for an organisation that not only embraces multi-culturalism but has inclusiveness as one of its core values.
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Kelina Tokunai
Kelina Tokunai spent her early childhood in Papua New Guinea where the philosophy of “it takes a village to raise a child” is very much the norm.
So the Lifestyle Coordinator at Uniting AgeWell Andrew Kerr Care Community is beyond excited to witness the “magical energy and pure joy” that The Herd Intergenerational Centre, which is under the same roof as the aged care facility, is creating.
And Kelina firmly believes that intergenerational bonding is the glue that holds so many families together. She knows that it works. It’s how she was raised.
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Manjeet Kaur
Uniting AgeWell Care Advisor Manjeet Kaur faced a decision no mother should ever have to make: to sacrifice seeing her son for two years to secure their future in Australia or return to India to be reunited with him.
Manjeet’s terrible choice started a few years ago when her parents came over from India to visit her and her baby boy. When Manjeet’s parents arrived from India to visit her and her baby boy, she was in a happy place - she’d finally found her niche in life in a career that had meaning - working with older people in the Launceston community in beautiful Tasmania.
Then her parents took him back to India for a little holiday. But within a few short weeks of them leaving, COVID-19 caused international flights to be grounded and Australia’s borders were slammed closed.
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Anne An
There are many magical moments that define the depth of genuine multi-culturalism at Uniting AgeWell.
And one of those was when Chinese-born Registered Nurse Xiao Lin donned a sari and participated in a Bollywood dance performance to celebrate Diwali, with residents at Uniting AgeWell Kalkee Community Nangatta.
Xiao, who goes by the name of Anne An, identifies as agnostic but was delighted to perform a Hindu dance at an organisation that is proudly part of the Uniting Church and puts all religions and spiritualities on an equal footing.
“It was a wonderful moment that felt absolutely right,” says Anne.
We're creating sacred spaces for all spiritualities
Every morning, a 97 year old resident sits in the Multi-Faith room at Uniting AgeWell Andrew Kerr Care, and breathes in the tranquility and serenity.
The room is open to all – residents, staff, families, volunteers, and visitors. Its primary purpose is to provide an uninterrupted peaceful space, to support the spiritual or religious needs and practices of users from a broad range of religious, secular and spiritual backgrounds.
