Department: Out & About - Getting Involved in the Community

David

David
David

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.

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Rowena

Rowena
Rowena
My name is Rowena. I live in the western suburbs of Sydney.
My hobbies are bike riding, badminton, cooking, and singing. Music, singing and dancing makes me feel good. I feel joyful when there is music. l also like playing different sports such as tennis and basketball and I like drawing and writing.
My favourite time is to hang out with friends and to spend time at the beach or go to the movies with them. Zooming and texting with friends is great.
My other special interest include cooking and helping my parents in the kitchen. I have done a cooking course at school and I have cooked meals from different cultures.
Helping others makes me feel good. I do this for my family, like helping with grocery shopping and giving my grandparents a massage. This I really enjoy.
I am good with computers and I have learnt different computer applications such as Google Drive, Zoom and Microsoft Word. I also have knowledge with using the smartphones and laptops. I do enjoy typing documents and making notes on the computer. I’m also good at fractions and money management.
As a mentor I feel I can support people to do some budget management and banking. To do this would make me feel happy, excited and helpful. As a mentor I would enjoy exploring with you new ideas and information to achieve the goals you want to achieve. Just like I learned to speak a different language such as French.
I know I have much empathy and always try to understand people’s feelings. I always try to look at the positive side of things. My main aim is to support peers to be confident. I like to stand up for myself and stand by my peers and friends. I want, like you to be included in society and to enjoy the good things in life. That means work and practice. Like one time a driver instructor asked me to change lanes. I needed to remember to do all the appropriate checks before I started to steer. I was nervous at first. But the more I did practice the better I became. It is all about practice and practice makes perfect.
I can speak Cantonese. A strength of mine is hip hop dancing and I like to follow the rhythms to dance in time. I like to sing new songs on the internet with the lyrics. If you would like to explore music interests or starting a new hobby with music I can help you with that.
Another strength I have is researching stuff on the internet. I am also good at different types of sports. I enjoy learning new things, currently I am obtaining a car license and can offer some insights and information about personal transport.
I am also a Peer Facilitator at the Young Adults Café and have also completed the Introduction of Peer Support, Peer Facilitation and Peer Mentoring training with DDAlliance. I look forward in getting to know you, to search for a goal and to help you achieve them together!
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Bill

Bill Zhao
Bill Zhao

Hi, my name is Bill Zhao. I’m a mentor at DDAlliance. I have good personal qualities and I am often described as hardworking, focused, loyal, friendly, honest, kind and very flexible person to work with.

I am passionate about public transport and I can support peers getting from point A to B. As a mentor, I support peers to access different public transport routes across Sydney and within the Opal networks.

I can help as a mentor in the following areas:

  • Supportyou across Sydney public transport within the Opal network
  • Different types of computer applications
  • Build on your confidences
  • Different types of places to visits
  • I’m keen to learn new things If you’re like connected and reach your goals, we can get connected.
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George

George
George

Hi, I am a passionate and possess plenty of lived experiences, and I am available to be your peer mentor through Diversity and Disability Alliance (DDAlliance). I will be able to work with you on your goals. As a peer mentor we can share experiences, knowledge and ideas. As well as mentoring, I will encourage and motivate you.

Some areas I have had experience in that might benefit you include:

  • Anything with NDIS, including self- management (employing and managing staff)
  • Finding leisure and recreation options
  • Advocacy (I have done this for the past 25 years)
  • Independent living skills
  • Travel
  • Life skills and much more

If you are looking for someone with over 35 years of experience, I am the man to support you.

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Abu Bakar

Abu Bakar
Abu Bakar

My name is Abu Bakar Sadozai. I am 25 years old and I am a student at university currently doing a Master’s degree in Teaching (Secondary). I have skills in reading and researching. My hobbies are to play sport, particularly cricket. I am a devout Muslim and have memorised the entire Quran.

I have personally faced many challenges of different levels in my life; some I had been successful and some unsuccessful. I have had support from my mum and that has been so important for me. My mum is my mentor as well, and my opinion is that having someone to discuss problems with, who can offer a sense of understanding and support, is central to a person’s personal and social well−being. Therefore, I feel I can potentially be a mentor who can try and talk with people who may like to discuss with me about anything.

I would do my best to try and talk and behave with full honesty and integrity without being judgmental.

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Abrahim

Ibby
Ibby

Hello, my name is Abrahim (you can call me Ibby for short), and I am 30 years old with physical disability.

I currently hold four degrees, which include the Masters of Business and Commerce, Bachelor of Business and Commerce (Accounting), Diploma of Leadership and Management and a Cert IV in Customer Engagement.

I have some experience working in the administration field, as well as being an active member of the community, doing voluntary and paid work. I’m a member of the Fairfield Migrant Interagency meeting, the Canterbury- Bankstown Universal Access Committee and I am a board member for the Diversity and Disability Alliance.

I am also an active member of the gym and I play table tennis. I enjoy playing trivia and watching sports, particularly rugby league and soccer.

The most important thing to me is believing in yourself. Having experienced depression most of my teenage years, I felt lonely and didn’t want to talk to anyone. But overtime I began to build the confidence to believe in myself and live life to its fullest.

Having the power to believe in yourself is the first step towards achieving success. I am very passionate about helping people achieve their goals. I am a warm, friendly, enthusiastic and empathetic person who is willing to support you to set out your goals and work tirelessly to achieve them. I want people to understand that they are not alone and that there are many people within the community who are having problems and need support.

I am happy to mentor people with physical disabilities, as I also have a physical disability and know what they are going through. Just having that one-on-one conversation with someone can help lift your self-esteem. I would also like to mentor people in my local community the Canterbury-Bankstown area and people in the Fairfield, Liverpool and Parramatta Area.

I really hope we can work together and achieve all the goals that have been set.

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Abbey

Abbey
Abbey

Hello, my name is Abbey, I am a mother of three intelligent and well-behaved boys, being the core of my life, especially my middle son who has a unique type of disability. Michael is my gift, the source of myself-empowerment and the root cause of my motivation. He used to be called “mystery boy” as the geneticist and specialists couldn’t find out what he was diagnosed with. That’s never stopped me loving and adoring him, trying to understand him, thinking out of the box, and seeing the world through his eyes. I have made it my goal is to help my son to reach his potential and to live his life fully.

We all have many challenges, though to cut through to the issues, I needed to build a network of parent support groups, this empowered us to stay connected with other parents, sharing experiences and knowledge as well as exchanging feedback about various services and therapies available that could help our kids to achieve their goals.

My interest and passion is helping parents to support their children with disability to discover their strength and helping them to develop it, reach their goals, to live their life fully is something. I strongly believe that we are all equal to because each person has a voice, choice and the right to have control of their own life.

Beside my caring role for Michael, I engage myself in the community as a volunteer such as, supporting the elderly and people with dementia in providing an avenue to maintain connection with their community and encourage them to be involved in new activities to keep them motivated, providing them a level of independence for as long as possible. I also partake in volunteering in special schools; working with students 1:1 with the guidance of their Speech pathologists’ and Occupational therapists’.

Over the years I have accumulated a significant amount of knowledge about the NDIS process and its operations in fields such as; pre-planning, review and self-managing. With this acquired experience I can transfer my skills to help you to set your goals, by working together so you can achieve your dreams.

My strong faith and my spirituality helps me to maintain a positive outlook, as with a positive attitude and right frame of mind helps me to manage my life in a better way. My hobbies include meditation, as well as listening to music and starting my day by going for a walk early in the morning, which helps me to get through the day positively.

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