Carers celebrated in Geelong

CARERS were honoured in Geelong on Monday with the launch of a carers’ art and craft exhibition and a new book titled Honouring Carers.

The celebration at the Eastern Hub coincided with National Carers Week, which encourages people to say thank you and show their support for unpaid carers.

Honouring Carers features the personal stories and photographs of 10 families associated with genU (formerly Karingal St Laurence) and following their journey as carers.

The week-long exhibition of art and craft displays the work of talented artists who also happen to be unpaid carers.

The celebration also featured a performance by genU’s Carers Choir.

Jacqui Pierce from genU’s ARCsupport team said there were some eye-opening statistics relating to carers in Australia.

“As you can read in the book, in 2015 there were 2.7 million unpaid carers in Australia and the average age of a primary carer is 55, also 96 per cent of primary carers care for a family member.

“The replacement value of the unpaid care provided in 2015 was $60.3 billion and it is estimated that carers provided 1.9 billion hours of unpaid care in 2015 – which is just an unbelievable amount of work that generally goes unnoticed.

“genU is proud and excited to be hosting this event to honour and thank our local carers, and celebrate their work through the book and art and craft exhibition.”

genU chief executive officer Mike McKinstry said 10 per cent of Victorians were in some kind of caring role, and their contributions should be recognised.

“Caring doesn’t define the person, but it can shape the person.”