Ni Hao

As one of the peak bodies representing ethnic Chinese migrants in South Australia, Chinese Welfare Services of SA Inc. has traveled far in our 3+ Decades of history.

We started life in Adelaide in 1989 when the then social worker and volunteer Mr Philip Ng, with a group of like-minded Chinese migrants and students and a free room and clerical support from Migrant Resource Centre, started to provide Welfare and Settlement services to the Chinese community.

We incorporated in 1991 and started receiving our first Commonwealth Grant to provide support to the Chinese Communities in SA.

Since these fruitful beginnings, CWS has grown and achieved many mile stones, many of which we continue to provide to our community today:-

• Organise Chinese festivities and functions each year to celebrate Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn (Moon lantern) festivals
• Collaborate with schools to help inform their students on Chinese cultures and foods
• Collaborate with other cultures to showcase our cultures, foods and share our common values – visiting each other’s community hall, share our stories about living in Australia
• We assisted in the first Dragon Boat festival in 2002 with a few teams at Elder Park
• Participate with other cultures and learn about each other’s faiths and foods in Living in Harmony project in 2004 and we have maintained our close relationships
• Received in 2005 Home and Community Care Program (HACC) that has morphed into Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) that provides our community with social support and services that allow our aged to live in their own home
• Organised Karaoke competitions, dancing competitions, Gambling awareness; New country new life – promotes parents’ group and building new life in a new country
• Started Chinese Ethnic School in 2005 and continued to teach children Chinese cultures and language.
• With our many keen volunteers, we have some 8 portfolios: Cooks, kitchen hands, transport, visiting groups, taichi, qicong groups, dancing, singing (Cantonese opera) , Mahjong group and when the COVID 19 pandemic is over – English learning class for seniors.
• Professional development programs have been operating annually for care support staff, volunteers, community members on various topics: basic first aid, falls prevention, governance, mental health awareness, manual handling, food hygiene and cross infection are part of a continuous program that is reviewed as a quality improvement program.
• Carers’ support program with information on caring and on dementia support to our carers, with respite opportunities to allow carers to have time off to care for themselves.
• Home Care Packages (HCP) – we received our accreditation to provide HCP in 2018 and meeting the needs of the elder Chinese speaking communities to access affordable care services to get some help at home. These are designed for those with complex care needs that go beyond what the Commonwealth Home Support Program can provide directly. The services we provide range from bathing, nursing, physiotherapy, podiatry and other therapies to meals and food preparation; transport, home o garden maintenance. This program enables CWS to employ Support workers who are bi-lingual to provide care and enable our communities to achieve staying at home with support.

Beyond maintaining many of these existing programs, my future vision for CWS is for us to:

• ensure ongoing advocacy for the Chinese community; including by providing input to inform policies that are inclusive for our multicultural society;
• purchase our own community centre in the near future
• develop an aged care setting – be it residential or retirement village - for our Chinese community providing culturally specific care
• collaborate with other training organisations into culturally specific care
• have Meals on Wheels provide Chinese specific meals to our community.