A case study on the video collaboration between the AMRC and African Communities Council of SA (ACCSA) featured in the Settlement Council of Australia’s (SCoA) newsletter released in May 2020. View the case study below:

At a Glance:

• Target participants: African clients, ethnic and community leaders, other services and community supports
• Aim: Informing of the multilingual telephone service implemented by the AMRC and ACCSA to ensure services and support amid Coronavirus
• Organisations involved: AMRC and ACCSA
• Location: Adelaide, South Australia.

Background
A video collaboration between the Australian Migrant Resource Centre (AMRC) and African Communities Council of SA (ACCSA), informing African clients, ethnic and community leaders, other services and community supports of the multilingual telephone service implemented by the AMRC and ACCSA to ensure services and support amid Coronavirus. The video is part of a cultural video project produced by and featuring people speaking in different languages regarding precautions to take and the multilingual telephone service implemented amid Coronavirus. The video serves a number of purposes, including, developing production skills, public speaking and community capacity building in a format driven and organised by a number of the African communities. The AMRC and ACCSA’s video can be viewed on the AMRC website.

How has your organisation/this program adapted/changed during COVID-19?
The AMRC has minimised face-to-face contact with its clients, other services and community supports by providing most of its services by phone through its multilingual staff. This was done to minimise the risk to vulnerable client groups within migrant and refugee communities and to minimise the risk to staff. The AMRC has cancelled large gatherings, English and civic participation classes, and social and cultural events. For urgent and emergency cases, the AMRC has had staff available for face-to-face assessment if it has been safe to do so with appropriate precautions taken. The AMRC’s Coronavirus notice, and telephone and emergency services contacts have been translated into ten different languages including Burmese, Dari/Hazaragi, Farsi/Persian, Arabic, Nepali, Swahili, Vietnamese, Pashto, Chinese and Karen. These translations are available on the AMRC website.

Challenges
The challenge was how to ensure that the African information project was driven and produced by the communities that needed the messages and in a format they would like to receive these messages.

Key Learnings
Empowering key community individuals to empower others in their communities in a culturally relevant and safe way. We congratulate the organisers and we know the African communities are appreciative of the messages.