Neighbourhood house offers a sense of place

MARONG Neighbourhood House might be small, operating out of an old one-room kindergarten building, but that has not stopped it from having a big impact on the town’s community. 

The centre offers a range of programs, and particularly focuses on community development and health and wellbeing, said coordinator Janine Cornish. 

“We just basically respond to what our community needs, as far as their health and wellbeing, and educational needs,” she said. 

Some of the groups include play, embroidery, craft, and sewing groups, as well as a community garden, an op shop, yoga, a senior’s exercise class, and one-on-one digital literacy support for over 50s. 

Ms Cornish said about three to four people come in for help with technology each day. 

“We do a lot of digital literacy because everything’s moved to online now,” she said. 

“A lot of people don’t have the capacity to negotiate and navigate all the online forms and you can’t just make a phone call and sort something out now that that generation likes to do.” 

About 150 people use the space each week; residents of Marong but also of nearby towns and suburbs like of Bridgewater, Newbridge, Lockwood South, Campbells Forest, Maiden Gully, and Myers Flat. 

The centre and its programs are funded by the Department of Families, Fairness, and Housing and annual grants from the City of Greater Bendigo. 

While the community is grateful for the support it does receive, said Ms Cornish, the building they currently use is old and small. 

“Probably our biggest hurdle is we don’t have any privacy rooms for when people come and need to have private meetings with you,” she said. 

“There are talks with the council that at some point they are looking at providing us with a different building, but that’s probably not going to happen anytime in my lifetime because there’s just no funding for it. 

“We essentially need a whole new building, this one’s starting to fall down around our ears, but that is our absolute biggest hurdle and barrier at the moment.  

“But we make do with what we have, and it does the job.”