CEO Quarterly Update July 2024

Last month, I attended the second national forum of Building Wellbeing into Policy and Action in Australia. It was held in Canberra, and it was full of economists and researchers.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers gave the opening address, and Ken Henry, one of Australia’s most eminent economists, delivered the keynote speech. This already set the scene for mixing with thought leaders quite different from those I usually encounter at public health conferences!

What I learned, and am so excited by, is that an entire global movement exists—and is growing. This movement consists of policymakers, economists, researchers, and governments, all challenging and redesigning fundamental systems to look beyond GDP growth and measure what truly matters.

They are focused on designing an economy that serves people and the planet, not the other way around.

I intend to explore this regionally, so watch this space. In the meantime, The Centre for Policy Development has published this briefing paper “The wellbeing economy in brief” which is worth reading, and you can also be informed and take action through the Wellbeing Economy Alliance who launched their Australian Hub at the same conference.

Feast or Famine

Those of you on the hamster wheel of grant applications know that at times, you can barely keep the organization going. Other times, you are flourishing.

I am pleased to convey that currently, HCI programs are flourishing with some very well-deserved and welcomed successes recently. Our much-loved Cook Chill Chat program has received funds from the Federal Department of Social Services, thanks to advocacy from Alison Byrnes MP and a healthy dose of luck.

The Australian Department of Defense has also provided funding to support vulnerable communities with social connection, nutrition education, and healthy cooking skills. The grant applications won’t stop, of course, but now we can serve our waiting list of organizations seeking this program for their clients.

This week, together with our Fair Food Illawarra Coalition partners, we have begun a new three-year program funded by the NSW EPA to reduce food waste and increase food donations.

Elke Cummings joined the team this week as the Regional Food Donation Coordinator. She will steer this critical program, reducing the environmental impact of excess food going to landfill and assisting our charities and community centres in providing food relief to a growing number of food-insecure families.

Related to the issue of food security, we have teamed up with our University of Wollongong colleagues, Dr. Katherine Kent and Prof. Karen Charlton, to disseminate the biggest food survey our region has ever seen. This survey aims to collect important information about our local food environment.

Please take the survey and share the link with friends, colleagues, and clients. Your experience and participation in the survey are critical to our advocacy efforts, ensuring food equity and healthy, accessible, and sustainable local food environments.

Click here: https://redcap.link/FoodSurveyUOW

New Recruits

This month we have also welcomed Alexander Brown to the team as the Asthma Projects Coordinator. It is very exciting to begin the Breathe Better in the Gong project, as our collaboration with Asthma Australia gets underway! We want to reduce the number of preventable hospital admissions for children with asthma, so if you are a school teacher, or parent who would like to stay up to date with this project, or be involved in some way, please email alexander@healthycities.org.au

Elke Cummings, Food Donations Coordinator, Alexander Brown, Asthma Projects Coordinator; and Loreto Medina, HCI’s newly appointed Marketing & Fundraising Coordinator.

Partnership Prowess

Partnerships and collaboration are fundamental to healthy and sustainable communities. I am looking forward to contributing as a new member of COORDINARE’s Community Advisory Committee for a three-year term. The Community Advisory Committee report to and advise the Board of our local Primary Health Network (Coordinare) around approaches and opportunities to improve things like access, efficiencies and appropriateness of health services, particularly for vulnerable communities who experience disproportionate degrees of disease and illness, isolation and disadvantage.

Healthy Cities Illawarra is also proud to be a founding member of the new UOW Community Partnership program launched last week. The strengthening of partnerships between our local university and community based not for profits amplifies our collective impact. We offer real-life teaching and learning opportunities for students, and knowledge translation opportunities for research. In return HCI benefits from academic support for evaluation and publication, and access to facilities and other resources.

Finally, save the date!  On the eve of  World Cities Day, HCI special networking function
Wed 30th Oct | 4.30-6.30pm | Details to come.

Thank you for taking the time to read my quarterly update.

Healthy regards,
Kelly