Hello, I’m David, I’m a person with physical and psychological disability.

My cultural background is Chinese, I was born in China, Beijing. The languages I speak are Mandarin, English and I can help peers connect with diverse communities.

I have had many challenges as a person mental health issues. From my previous struggle, I received many support from the organisations (such as DDAlliance, Settlement Services International, Multicultural Disabilit Adovacy Association and Georges River Council)and in return I want to give back to the community.

I did a volunteer job at the Salvation Army for 3 years. For all the Chinese people that came into the service, I supported them by having a coffee with them, spent time with them and accompany and supported them through Mandarin interpretation to help them with finding a social worker to meet their needs. I have connections with the social workers working in the Salvation Army and St Vincent De Paul Society.Also, we gave out gift-cards and food to people in financial stress, and gift cards for groceries.

I am a very passionate individual that could provide support to people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds and Chinese peers, I have a strong sympathy about the stigmas around mental health and disability in the Asian community. Therefore, I have set up a Chinese Disability Peer Support Group and became a coordinator for this group in the last 3 years. I organise people from external organisations (invite managers of Age and Disability Commission, Centrelink, NDIS speakers, mental health coordinating council to attend the Peer Cafes to speak about their services, information on finding support) I welcome new peers, family members into the space. Also, I organise speakers to join our Peer Café and present their work.

In my personal time I am active in different activities, such as hiking and golfing. I organised special events to celebrate different events for the year, with Chinese New Year and Christmas. Every year, I access a grant forum Carers NSW to fund our group with $300 for events like barbeques, and this is for Carers. I also apply grants from my local council to support the group, this often involves free venue hire like the library for meetings.

I like to help peers from Chinese backgrounds to access carers, introduce organisations that provide services to find a carer, for example CASS.

The skills I have include assisting peers with accessing NDIS and Centrelink for the carers payment and disability pension support. I help peers to apply for the disability pension support.

I’ve supported many members from my group to navigate government systems to get the support theyneed, as this helped peers receive funding, and support when they have lost housing.I previously supported peers to access services for housing applications, bywriting a letter to the local MP to take action. I connect peers to services with housing assistance, social workers to receive support and guidance with the procedures.

With my expertise, I am able to support you to access Legal Aid, going to court with the AAT, making a complaint, and develop advocacy skills. I can support peers to be linked to the right services.

I am keen and confident aboutsupportingCALDpeople with disability to access peer support groups and different services.