Health Promotion Programs & Projects at MCWH:
Putting Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Health First

Health Promotion Programs
Our Health Promotion Programs provide immigrant and refugee women with what they want: high quality multilingual health education and information in a multicultural context.

We know that the many demands on our daily lives means taking care of our health often takes last place. Finding the time to seek health information is difficult and finding it in the languages we speak, sensitive to our cultural and personal needs, is even less likely. That’s why our health promotion programs are run by immigrant and refugee women for immigrant and refugee women. The woman-to-woman approach is our peer education model, based on the belief that women sharing health information and experiences in the best way to wellbeing. We also go to where women indicate is most convenient for them from a community space to the workplace during a lunchbreak.

Our Industry Visits and Community Workshops Programs are defined by these principles and methods of health education and information delivery. The Multilingual Health Education Programs follow a holistic, peer-education model that respects immigrant and refugee women’s experiences and knowledge. The Programs are conducted by our bilingual Health Educators who are trained to discuss sensitive women's health issues in the preferred language of the participants.

Our health promotion also recognises addressing specific issues that affect immigrant and refugee women, includes not only our own efforts, but working with other programs that are dedicated to special issues. That's why we work with the Family and Reproductive Rights Education Program (FARREP), the state wide program that addresses the needs of communities traditionally affected by practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM). FARREP also addresses other sexual and reproductive health issues of targeted communities.

MCWH Health Education Programs and Quality Standards Booklets
Please download the following PDFs for an outline of our Health Education Programs and Quality Standards. These booklets include information on:

• MCWH Model of Health Promotion
• MCWH Health Promotion Areas of Excellence and Expertise
• MCWH Health Education Modules
• Current List of Languages Available

MCWH Health Education Programs Booklet 115Kb

MCWH Standards Booklet 1Mbb

MCWH Projects
MCWH Health Promotion is enhanced by our projects which either support ongoing work or allow us to build capacity (and the capacity of others) to engage immigrant and refugee women with regards to their health and wellbeing needs. Projects inject new knowledge and expertise into MCWH, offer new opportunities for learning and training, and more often than not relate to issues that are both topical and pressing in immigrant and refugee women’s health.

For more information click on the project name:

• Points of Departure Project (POD)
  The Points of Departure Project (POD) is a MCWH special project which seeks to build knowledge and capacity of NGOs and individuals to advocate on key health issues affecting immigrant and refugee women.
   
• Healthy Credit Project: To Every Woman Money, Power, Freedom.
  In 2008 MCWH implemented the Healthy Credit Project, which explored and addressed the credit and debt issues in immigrant and refugee women's lives. The project found that credit and debt are significant issues in the lives of immigrant women and that often, debt is poverty-related.