By Marcus Uhe
After two years of fits and starts due to the pandemic, the Casey Community Hub will officially launch on Thursday 25 August.
The hub, at St Therese’s Primary School in Cranbourne North, offers classes to primarily migrant women and people of diverse backgrounds to build social cohesion and assist with integrating into the community.
The school is the first within the Catholic Diocese of Sale to open a Community Hub.
Casey Community Hub offers a range of classes such as English, computer skills and sewing lessons.
It is open to anyone in the area to join, rather than just members of the St Therese community.
Since the start of this year, community hubs in Casey have welcomed more than 400 families from diverse backgrounds, particularly mothers with pre-school children, to connect, share and learn.
Trish Lloyd is the Wellbeing and Community Hub leader and has been involved in the establishment of the hub from the beginning, conducting research, building partnerships and analysing data to ensure the hub runs to the best of its ability.
According to Ms Lloyd, 70 per cent of the school community at St Therese fall into the bracket of using English as an Additional Language (EAL).
She describes the facility as “my baby”.
“Honestly, it’s been an incredible journey and huge amount of work to get it up and running but I’ve never got such satisfaction out of anything,” Ms Lloyd said.
“Watching (the participants) gain confidence and learn, and making social connections that they lost from Covid-19, is very rewarding.
“Moving forward, I hope to keep offering those kinds of programs very much tailored to the participants’ needs.”
Chief executive of Community Hubs Australia, Dr Sonja Hood praised the positive influence hubs were having within their communities.
“Our hubs in Casey have done a terrific job of providing families with activities, programs and partnerships that reflect and respond to the needs of their local community,” Dr Hood said.
“The impact they are having is remarkable.”
