Are you part of a project that is helping make Melbourne great? Register for your chance to receive our city’s highest accolade.
For 16 years, we’ve honoured inspirational contributions to Melbourne’s sustainability, community, multiculturalism and profile through the Melbourne Awards.
Dr Linny Kimly Phuong, Founder and Director of The Water Well Project, said it was a great honour to receive the Multiculturalism Award last year.
‘The award has given our volunteers that extra sense of pride in their efforts,’ Linny said.
‘It has also helped us connect with other like-minded organisations across Melbourne, many of which operate in completely different sectors, to share information about how we can fulfil our purposes. It has been inspiring to see.’
As a child, Linny saw how difficult it was for her parents, who were Vietnamese refugees to Australia, to navigate the healthcare system, and she would often help interpret their medical consultations.
Now a doctor herself, Linny observed that patients with an overseas background still find it challenging to access acute and preventative healthcare services.
In particular, people’s cultural beliefs and prior experiences of healthcare in their home countries were often profoundly different to our Australian system.
The Water Well Project aims to bridge this gap in knowledge by improving health literacy and, in doing so, improve equal access to healthcare services.
Linny hopes to expand the project across the country and is seeking new healthcare professional volunteers and partners to help accelerate its mission.
‘Long term, we hope this award will increase opportunities to work with more “high-risk” refugee and asylum seeker communities, through greater access to various funding pathways to support our work, and thus enable us to accept more community referrals,’ Linny said.
Melbourne Award registrations are open from 1 May to 7 June.
To find out more, visit Melbourne Awards.
