Vacancies at Multicultural Vacc Hub

A THIRD multicultural community pop-up COVID-19 vaccination hub at the Ballarat Welcome Centre has appointment vacancies for Saturday, 11 September.

The Hub is facilitated by the Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council, Ballarat Health Services and Ballarat Community Health and will be open from 10.30am until 3.30pm.

Community engagement team leader Heeyoung Lim said BRMC is offering the service partly to support those with language barriers.

“We did a simple survey with multicultural community members from South Sudan, Arabic, Togo, and Afghanistan, and realised that they didn’t have proper information about vaccination,” she said.

“We knew we needed to have our vaccination hub so multicultural people can be more comfortable with the environment.

“At our vaccination hub last week, one of the women told me she was very grateful to get vaccinated on the day, and a lot of young people came, which was amazing, and said if this hub wasn’t held, they probably wouldn’t have been vaccinated.”

The first pop-up vaccination hub last weekend saw 65 people receive a dose, while 112 people will be vaccinated this Saturday.

“Everyone worked hard at the multicultural vaccination hub last Saturday to help multicultural people and make us safe.

“Everything was processed smoothly and we are very happy that we could help multicultural people here in Ballarat,” Ms Lim said.

BRMC are establishing a COVID-19 multicultural community champion network this month.

“We want to work together to have a safer Ballarat and are looking for people over 18 with a multicultural background who have a passion for helping others and making a difference,” Ms Lim said.

The multicultural community pop-up COVID-19 vaccination hub is funded by the State Government. Visit bit.ly/3gOKRzI to book a spot.