By Marcus Uhe
You may not have accessed their services personally, or you may be more familiar with them as community hubs, learning centres or neighbourhood centres.
But while they often vary in their name, all of them identify as Neighbourhood Houses, assisting in providing crucial advocacy, advisory, support services and connection opportunities across their 400 Victorian locations and 1000 across the country.
There’s every chance that somewhere, at some point, you have felt the benefits of a local Neighbourhood House; their lobbying may have accelerated the development of a local road, a law change, or a friend of colleague may have benefited from their advisory services throughout their journey.
So during the week of May 9 to 15, take a moment to appreciate their hard work through Neighbourhood House week.
The City of Casey has 14 such facilities, including the Balla Balla Community Centre in Cranbourne East.
Maree Cullinan, Centre Manager at Balla Balla, has been at the facility since its inception in 2007.
While they all share a common overall objective, she said no two houses are the same when it comes to their advocacy and tireless work in establishing connections throughout the community.
“Each house is unique to the community it services,” Ms Cullinan said.
“If there was something that came to them from the community that required advocacy support, we would certainly advocate on their behalf, to whoever necessary. It may be the local member, the council, the State Government.
“Where it does require us to support them, with advocacy, we will do that.”
Current advocacy projects include contacting local Federal MPs regarding cost of living pressures ahead of the election later this month.
Across Victoria, around 200,000 people visit a Neighbourhood House each week, equating to 10 million visits every year.
More than 4000 community groups are supported by Neighbourhood Houses through their 3600+ active partnerships in any given month to deliver the needs of their local community.
In 2021, the centres in Dandenong were critical in helping to settle Afghan refugees following the Taliban’s takeover of their country in August including assisting with facilitating English language classes.
The theme of this year’s Neighbourhood House Week is “Building resilience by bringing people together.”
On Tuesday 10 May, Balla Balla will host a High Tea to recognise the significance of the week and re-establish social connections.
Ms Cullinan believes the ability to bring people together and foster networks throughout local communities are one of the biggest strengths of Neighbourhood houses, particularly coming off a period where a lot of us experienced isolation as a result of the pandemic.
Importantly, what constitutes a community for one person will be different for other people, but that shouldn’t diminish their importance.
Whether you’re into basketball, video games, cooking, sewing, a neighbourhood house will endeavour to show that there is a network for you, according to Ms Cullinan.
“To really be connected in a community, you need a network. It makes you feel like you belong.
“It could be at work, you have a work network, in the community you can have a network with all different things. It could be through a program at a neighborhood house, it could be that you have a coffee or tea with them in a social setting.
“It’s about building that network and making people feel that they belong.”
The most important step, however, is being prepared to reach-out and explore what programs are on offer.
“I think they’ve just got to walk in the door, and sometimes that’s the hardest thing but it’ll be the best door that they walk through,” Ms Cullinun said.
“That may be that they return to work, because for whatever reason they have not been in work. It may be that they return to study, again, we could be part of the answer to that, because some Neighbourhood Houses have accredited and pre-accredited training, so we can connect them with those houses, depending on what they wanted to do.
“The rest will just happen organically, because that’s what we do; we pick people up where they are and go along the journey.
“We are open to everyone, it doesn’t matter about gender, age cultural background, any of that stuff.”
To learn more about what Neighbourhood houses exist in the City of Casey and what they can do to help you, head to caseyconnectlearn.com.au/
For more on Neighbourhood House Week, head to nhvic.org.au/nhw
To book a place at the High Tea at Balla Balla, call the centre on 5990 0900 or go to ballaballa.com.au/event/3084/
