Page 3313 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 October 2022
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Australian, and one in five women aged 65 to 74, is a carer. This budget includes $825,000 over the forward estimates to implement the carers strategy, and that will ensure greater capacity to work with community partners, including those in the Gungahlin area to implement the strategy and support the ACT’s 42,000 carers. We also have a number of supports for people who are experiencing dementia, and we are making sure that we are committed to funding support for dementia-friendly events and design in line with the Age-Friendly City Plan 2020 to 2024. This will support ongoing investment in dementia friendly events such as the film screening which is happening on 22 October, towards the end of Carers Week, of The Sapphires at the National Film and Sound Archive. That will be a wonderful experience for people to go to together.
The ACT is also continuing to fund week-day flexible public transport services to meet the accessible transport needs of Canberrans who are 70 years or older, or for people on a disability support pension. So there is quite a range of things that we are doing that will support people in Yerrabi.
MR BRADDOCK: How does the ACT Government ensure that services for seniors are delivered near where seniors live?
MS DAVIDSON: That is a very good question, and I thank Mr Braddock for that supplementary question. The Age Friendly Suburbs program, which sets out how the ACT government plans to make Canberra’s infrastructure more accessible and inclusive for all of us, is currently open for public consultation on the YourSay website, and I would encourage all Canberrans, including those in the suburbs of Yerrabi, to be involved in this consultation process.
The Age Friendly Suburbs program is an ACT government commitment to improve paths, network infrastructure and connectivity in suburbs with a large proportion of residents who are aged over 55 years, and which are also a home to aged care and retirement facilities. We also have the seniors grant program, which provides $80,000 in funding for innovative projects that promote seniors as valued members of the community and enable their active participation in community life. I would very much encourage any community groups in the Gungahlin area that are interested in being able to run some of these kinds of projects, to put in their applications for seniors grants for 2022-23. The applications will close on 24 October.
MR DAVIS: Minister, what is the ACT government doing specifically to help seniors from multicultural communities?
MS DAVIDSON: Thank you for that question. The ACT government funds quite a few initiatives for our multicultural community organisations, including through the 2021-22 seniors grant program. There were quite a few projects that received funding, such as the Federation of Chinese Community of Canberra, which provides English language programs, singing groups and music groups for older people from the Chinese community. There were musical art workshop and art therapy workshops for people in retirement villages and nursing homes delivered by the Australian and New Zealand Maori Cultural School of Dreams. Yeddung Mura received a grant to provide Aboriginal elders with holistic activities for spiritual and mental wellbeing to support healthy ageing.
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