Celebration Week: Rani Wong, Coordinator MWC

1 August 2020

1 Aug 2020

Rani Wong has been the Coordinator of the Multicultural Wellness Centre (MWC) for five years. The MWC is the first culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) specific integrated aged focused wellness centre in Victoria. It provides social opportunities to people from non-English speaking backgrounds over the age of 65, in a warm, friendly environment. The MWC also hosts Chinese, Filipino and Sri Lankan social support groups.

What is the biggest change you’ve seen from when you started to now?
The expansion of our MWC numbers. Our Chinese groups are now running four days per week, including our Out & About Group and centre-based groups. Our Filipino group started in 2015 and the Sri Lankan group in 2017. When I was first employed, there were only 30 Chinese clients. Our highest number of clients has been 125 and now we have around 100.

What does it mean to you to work at VMCH?
I find it very meaningful to work in an organisation which is helping those in need in the community. I would like to emphasise the importance of the team, and how supportive my managers, teammates and other colleagues are. All our team members are caring and committed. I cannot do it on my own.

What do you love most about your role?
We provide services to those vulnerable clients from non-English speaking backgrounds. Besides running the social support groups for elderly clients in different groups tailored made to their needs, we are trying to assist clients and their carers to access other services in our organisation and community. For example, we assisted Chinese clients to register on My Aged Care due to their language barriers and referred carers to our Carers Support Program to get the support and assistance looking after their loved ones.My philosophy is from The Bible, Colossians 3:23. “No matter what you do, you must do it from the heart, as if it were the Lord, not for people”.

What do you like to do outside of work?
I have two German Shepherds at home, so taking care of them and the family.

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Acknowledgement of Country

We here at VMCH respectfully acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we gather, and we would like to take a moment to honour the fact that we live on the lands of the oldest civilisation in the world. We acknowledge the stories, traditions and wisdom of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.