Sydney (Media Release Minister for Health, Monday, 4 September 2023): The importance of physical activity for culturally and linguistically diverse communities (CALD) is the focus of this year’s Multicultural Health Week.
Launching Multicultural Health Week at Parliament House today, NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the NSW Government was proud of its partnerships with communities to help people live healthier and more active lives, as he announced this year’s theme, ‘Celebrate Culture Through Movement: Every Move Counts’.
“Multicultural Health Week is a great opportunity to celebrate the immense contributions from our culturally and linguistically diverse communities while recognising ways we can all improve our health and wellbeing,” Mr Park said.
“We must also work to address health issues increasingly faced by multicultural communities, including the importance of being healthy and well, and prioritising physical activity to prevent illnesses.
“This week is an important reminder to everyone that physical activity with friends and family is not only a benefit to overall wellbeing, but also an opportunity to help celebrate and strengthen connection to culture.”
NSW Health Secretary Susan Pearce AM said as part of this year’s Multicultural Health Week, a range of in-language resources have been developed to encourage people to be physically active together with their family and friends.
“The NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service, the NSW Ministry of Health and the Cancer Institute NSW have worked together to develop a host of great new resources to encourage more people to get physically active,” Ms Pearce said.
“Not only is it fun, but it can also help prevent chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease.”
Evidence shows that people from CALD backgrounds typically have lower levels of physical activity or exercise than the general population. A range of factors influence participation rates including settlement issues.
The NSW Population Health Survey data from 2021 reports that rates of insufficient physical activity for adults are higher in those born in mainly non-English speaking countries (42 per cent) than those born in Australia (36.3 per cent).
Professor Tracey O’Brien, NSW Chief Cancer Officer and Cancer Institute NSW CEO, said physical inactivity is one of the top four causes of cancer.
cancer,” Prof O’Brien said.
“We are proud to partner with the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service to help deliver this important message, to celebrate culture through movement, and to highlight that even small amounts of exercise can help to reduce risk of cancer.”
This year’s theme is further supported by the Multicultural Health Week 2023 Small Grants program.
Grants of up to $2000 each have been provided to 15 organisations for community engagement activities across NSW.
Director of the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service, Lisa Woodland, said a range of multilingual resources have been produced to encourage CALD communities to engage in physical activity as part of Multicultural Health Week 2023.
“Our aim was to create resources that bring people from all communities together in a joyful, upbeat manner. We want to celebrate culture through movement, taking a family-centred approach that is inclusive of all generations,” Ms Woodland said.
The resources include:
- 1-minute video to promote Multicultural Health Week 2023
- Multiple testimonial videos highlighting culture and movement
- Factsheet available in English and 19 languages (Arabic, Bangla, Burmese, Cantonese, Dari, Farsi, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Kurdish Kurmanji, Mandarin, Nepali, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Ukrainian and Vietnamese)
- Multicultural Health Week Poster and social media assets in English and 19 languages
These multilingual resources are available to download for free by visiting the Multicultural Health Week webpage, YouTube and social media platforms.
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