During covid, Melbourne was locked down for longer than any other city. Around 2 years. But, many of our multicultural communities were not complying with public health orders. It wasn’t defiance, it was because the orders were complicated and changed often, sometimes every few days. Many new terms and concepts like social distancing, self isolation, social bubbles, etc were introduced. But these weren’t considered in the context of these communities. We were told of we had covid we need to isolate from the people we live in by staying in a separate bedroom with a separate bathroom. Many of our communities have multiple generations living in one house with only one bathroom.So we worked with these communities to understand their needs and their perspectives. We actually worked with over 100 community leaders and champions. We then codesigned plain language resources with them and tested them with community members. Compliance improved significantly, covid cases amongst these communities dropped, vaccination rates climbed. We dispelled myths and misinformation. We also won a Victorian multicultural commission award for this work. I’m so proud of this work. In face after Covid, the 100 champions wanted to keep working with us and we now have a network of 170 who work on multiple plain lnaguage health related projects to improve the lives of these marginalised communities.The champions are now trusted members of the community. And they trust us. Plain language builds trust, right. They run focus groups for us with their communities and we fund this work. If we get a grant they get paid for the community consultation and testing they do, and their community members get paid for participating. Other projects that have come along as a result of this are cancer screening, organ and tissue donation, understanding loans, alcohol and drug, mental health, prevention of suicide. We use the same model and we get great results. The team are so proud.

Cinzia Theobald