CPP joint cultural briefing

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CPP joint cultural briefing
Cultural briefing on Macedonian, Arabic Indo
Chinese, Croatian Communities In Victoria
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Overview of Shared Presentation

• Aim
• To enhance awareness understanding of CALD
  communities experience, cultural and health
  issues
• To develop a shared understanding of the barriers
  to access to mainstream services and jointly
  develop some strategies
• composition of the communities
• socio-cultural characteristics and
• Community issues

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Macedonia
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Macedonia

• Capital Skopje
• Population 2,2 million (500,000
  residing in Skopje)
• Borders North Serbia and
  Montenegro
• South Greece
• East Bulgaria
• West Albania
• Political System Parliamentary Democracy
• Religion Macedonian Orthodox
  (64.7), Muslim (33.3) and
• other Christian
  
• Language Macedonian, Albanian,
  Romani, Turkish etc.

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Religion, Tradition and Culture

• There is a strong relationship between religion,
  tradition and culture in the Macedonian
  community, especially for the elderly.
• Macedonian Orthodox religion is based on the
  Julian Calendar. For this reason Christmas is
  celebrated on the 7th of January and New Year on
  the 14th of January.
• Church plays an important role in the life of the
  majority of the elderly population.
• Most Macedonians belong to the Orthodox faith.
• Macedonians, in particular the elderly, practice
  fasting at least four times a year including
  Christmas (7th Jan), Orthodox Easter, St Peter
  (12th July) and Bogorodica (Virgin Mary-28th Aug)

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Migration and Settlement Experience

• Political and Economic Hardship
• Many left from being traumatized for almost a
  decade of war, and Greek oppression which
  continues till today in their homeland.
• Pechalba
• The shift from pelchalba to settler occurred for
  personal and political reasons, thus the wives
  and children joined the pechalbari.
• In Victoria, early settlers congregated in the
  inner or outer Fitzroy, Collingwood, Preston,
  Richmond and the Werribee farms on Melbournes
  fringe.

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Overview of the Arabic communities

• Who is the Arabic community?
• 22 countries of the Arabic league

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Religion of the Arabic communities

• CHRISTIANS
• Catholics
• Orthodox
• Chaldean
• Coptics
• Maronites
• Malkites
• Assyrian
• Armenian

• ISLAM
• Sunni
• Shia
• Alawi
• Druze
• Ismaili

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Arabic speaking immigrants to Australia

• Iraq has now supplanted Lebanon as the largest
  source country for immigrants.
• Sudan has emerged in the last 5 years as second
  only to Iraq in numbers of arrivals.
• Lebanon and Egypt continue to be the largest
  source countries of overseas-born in Australia.

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The Republic of Croatia
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The Republic of Croatia

• Capital Zagreb
• Population 4.4 million (780,000 residing in
  Zagreb)
• Borders Mainland Bosnia Herzegovina, Serb
  ia, Montenegro, Slovenia Hungary
• Sea Italy, Slovenia Montenegro
• Political System Parliamentary Democracy
• Religion Roman Catholic ( 88), Orthodox
  (4), other Christian Muslim
• Language Croatian (96), Serbian (1) other
• Source Croatian Bureau of Statistics 2002

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Attitudes to Professional Care Services

• Croats have differing attitudes in relation to
  professional care
• Traditionally, professional care is a foreign
  concept, therefore suspicion
• Today, more receptive to professional care but
  needs to be more culturally linguistically
  appropriate
• Reluctance to take services

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VIETNAMESE CULTURAL AWEARNESS
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VIETNAMESE CULTURAL BACKGROUND

• Patterns of communication
• Vietnamese talk around and around a subject
  before coming to the point.
• Looking straight into someones eyes in
  conversation, it is not respectable especially to
  older people or superiors
• A smile means everything, happiness or sorrow,
  agreement or disagreement, understanding or not.

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• Attitudes towards Health and Sickness
• Vietnamese deal with illness through traditional
  medicine. Many use traditional remedies in
  parallel to Western health care. Western
  medicines may be tried when all known traditional
  remedies have failed.
• The Vietnamese people see mind and body as being
  one, therefore mental and physical problems need
  to be treated as a whole

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• Attitudes towards Residential Care
• Children are expected to demonstrate respect and
  render filial piety to their parents and
  grandparents.
• They are also great sources of help when the
  parents are unable to work or when they get old.
• ..... There were many of my friends said that
  stay in nursing homes like you lies in a coffin
  without the lid on.

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Overview CALD Elderly (Shared)

• Socio-cultural characteristics Community
  issues
• Diversity of communities
• Family structure Role of the family
• Issues of gender
• Religion
• Politics
• Settlement experiences effects on the
  relationship between parents and young people.

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Key Issues for the elderly in adjusting to ageing
in Australia (Shared)

• Disparity between services offered in Australia
  and home country.
• Lack of notion of social welfare.
• Different role of the family in care-giving.
• Accessing help at point of crisis.
• Inflexibility of the offered services.
• Social stigma to mental health issues.

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Traditions/Culture (Shared)

• CALD speaking communities social life and
  traditions revolves around their religious
  centers for example at churches and mosques.
• The family is the most important social
  institution as it provides economic support,
  cultural maintenance, and sociability.
• Family links support return visits and ongoing
  contact with migrants former homelands.
• Family values are expressed during major stages
  in the life cycle (birth, marriage, death) and in
  attitudes towards social institutions such as
  work, education, law etc.
• Range from traditional to modern, even within the
  one family, over time, family customs move
  towards Australian norms

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Attitude towards Residential Facilities (Shared)

• Some home countries (Arabic, Vietnam) do not
  have government funded services similar to HACC
  Age Care Residential Facilities
• Other countries have private and public
  residential facilities and services with similar
  standards
• For Croatian traditional profession care is a
  foreign concept, therefore suspicious.

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Cultural Attitudes to Health Issues (Shared)

• Home countries are addressing and promoting
  health issues in the media.
• Most are accepting of frailty of ageing, as part
  of life cycle.
• Generally overseas diagnosis of a serious illness
  is not directly told to the patient, it is
  discussed with the next of kin.
• Fear of being informed of a bad illness,
  increases their stress level and recovery process
  . Where as in Australia, patients are immediately
  informed of possible diagnosis.

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Attitudes to professional care/services (Shared)

• Seeking help outside the family means failure in
  their responsibility and obligation to care for
  their elderly.
• Fear/mistrust of authorities and completion and
  signing
• of forms
• Lack of planning/understanding of services
• Openly discuss ailments or conditions related to
  physical incapacity but not mental health.

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Barriers to access to services (Shared)

• Language
• Lack of understanding of services and service
  related issues
• Inappropriateness of some translated information
• Cultural relevance of HACC services Aged Care
  Facilities
• Lack of openness regarding the need to seek
  assistance outside the family
• Social stigmas (not wanting charity)
• Sense of guilt and failure
• Deliberate omission of certain health conditions
  due to distrust and fear