Ishar Year in Review 2023

Ishar’s Highlights for 2023

Since 1992, Ishar’s primary purpose has been to serve and support the refugee and migrant women in the community. We believe that if women are inspired and empowered, they are able to empower their families, and communities and create change at a collective level. Ishar has supported thousands of women over our 3 decades of service. In the 22/23 FY alone Ishar supported more than 5800 women from over 96 different ethnicities and provided over 36,000 service contacts. 

This year we achieved great success across many of our programs, from reaching new heights to extending much needed programs across our service.

On October 4th we celebrated an incredible milestone with our community and fellow service providers, who have supported us in bringing to fruition our new health centre in the South Metro area, which will serve the growing needs of the local community south of the river. We opened our doors in Cannington and have started delivering essential health and social support services to women from multicultural backgrounds and hope to expand these services going into 2024.

We delivered 12 specialised programs, strengthened partnerships with local and regional services and explored new topics such as food insecurity and climate change. We added another service area to our FDV services through the newly established FDV Hub in Armadale, expanding Ishar’s FDV intervention service to cover the wider metropolitan area. Our Family Support Service and Mental Health Service continue to see positive outcomes and we will continue to provide these services across both locations.

Our Health in My Language and Dietetics programs expanded their scope to ensure increased access to essential health literacy across various communities, not only to educate, but to also promote improved health outcomes for women and their families, focusing on cultural knowledge and enhancing cultural safety.

Our Perinatal Support Service expanded its delivery through the Mother Baby Nurture therapeutic group which has seen some of the most vulnerable women supported through individual advocacy and mental health support.

Ishar’s Youth Program has continued to build on success and recognises the unique challenges faced by young refugee and migrant youth that demand specialised solutions. Our skilled Youth Advocates champion the young women they support, through various forums and mediums, making sure that the voices of CaLD youth are heard and counted.

This year we have supported and celebrated with the hundreds of women who regularly access our mental health, family support groups and women’s health services along with our dedicated staff, support workers, volunteers and students, who have shown passion and commitment to take Ishar to new heights.

Take a look at a few of the highlights from this year in the video above.