Dundas Area Neighbourhood Centre - the HEART of the Community
Being part of a community can have a positive effect on mental health and emotional wellbeing. Community involvement provides a sense of belonging and social connectedness. It can also offer extra meaning and purpose to everyday life. {Dept of Health}
Our goal in brief
Dundas Area Neighbourhood Centre, fondly known as DANC, is looking to run a series of programs to increase the wellbeing and strengthen the resilience of our community.
About us
DANC is a non-profit community organisation based in the Dundas Community Centre, which is located in Telopea. This facility is owned by City of Parramatta Council and DANC leases the building.
DANC has been running programs in the local area for over 40 years, we opened in 1977 after local residents formed the Dundas Community Aid & Information Service. In the 90's we became Dundas Area Neighbourhood Centre and during this time have been a main hub in the community for providing information, referrals to other services as well as a range of programs and activities. These programs support everyone in our community from new bubs to seniors. Our programs have changed and grown over the years as our community does. Our programs aim to empower local people to live safe, fulfilling lives and to achieve their potential; with an increasing focus on supporting vulnerable children, young people and their families.
During lockdown we increased our service to provide food hampers to those in need and these have continued to be given out each week. We have also just received a donation of blankets and scarves and beanies to provide to those in need in our community.
Our current programs include Friday Connect which provides free lunches to our community every week. We work with our partners from the Tzu Chi foundation to connect community to each other and to other services. We have an Oz Harvest food hamper program that also runs each week. We also have a multicultural dance program running in partnership with Hume Housing, we have a jewellery making class run by one of our community members who is sharing her skill with others. We run programs for kids each school holidays and a weekly program for Young People in partnership with the Y. We have a NEST program (Nutrition, Education, Skills, Training) starting soon. This program teaches participants about how to cook nutritious food on a budget.
We also support community groups using the centre including art classes, dance group, music group and table tennis.
DANC has a great connection with our community. Our funding doesn't extend far enough for us to be able to run all the programs that our community have told us they would like to see happening - to these funds will enable us to expand our programs.
Our Goal in detail
We plan to run 4 programs over the year to meet this goal. This will include a meditation program, a cultural program for CALD (Culturally and Linguistically diverse) residents, an Environmental awareness program and a fun arts and craft program for adults. Each program will run for 6-8 weeks at the Neighbourhood Centre.
These programs will be FREE for residents and provide opportunities not only to learn a new skill, but to gain confidence and make new friends/networks within the community. These networks can improve resilience and help people feel part of the HEART of the community.
Our programs are designed based on identified community needs, often from people who attend one of our programs and want to learn more. For example, we held a program called "Stepping Confidently into 2022", this program was designed to support women in self love and confidence. The women attending this program came up with a range of ideas about what they would like to attend in the future. Meditation was the top of the list! As we know, meditation is great for our mental health, it reduces stress, eases anxiety, can lower blood pressure, boosts concentration and so much more. The outcomes of a meditation program will meet our goal of increasing the wellbeing and strengthening the resilience of our community.
Our area has a large multicultural population, 2016 statistics for Telopea alone states that the languages spoken at home included Mandarin 14.3%, Korean 9.9%, Cantonese 9.0%, Arabic 2.8% and Persian (excluding Dari) 2.6%. DANC previously ran a program called "tea and talk" which was mainly attended by CALD residents, they told us (through interpreters) that they would like to have a regular program where they could learn about cultures other than their own. They also would like to visit museums and art centres to learn about the arts.
The DANC team are excited about our start some good fundraising and we really want YOU to be a part of the HEART of our wonderful community.
Rewards
We really want to celebrate our community, so for our top donors we will have a wonderful private celebration to meet the community we support and hear first hand from DANC staff and Board members about our plans and goals for the organisation
