Advance Diversity Services (ADS) in partnership with NSW Health, not only helped create in language resources to encourage health screening for their emerging Bangladeshi and Nepalese communities – they also choreographed a new dance to reinforce the message that ‘taking care of yourself is the best way to take care of your family’.
Screening Saves Lives is a collection of video and print resources in community languages, including Bengali and Nepali, to show women and families from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities how easy it is to participate in cervical, breast and bowel cancer screening. These resources were launched at the Screening Saves Lives event on April 8.
The Living a Life dance was performed by three generations of Nepalese women – the Nepalese children’s cultural dance group, their mothers and their grandmothers. This intergenerational dance explores the experience of being a migrant woman, and integrates this with the universal experiences of joy, happiness, relationships, identity, loss and adventure. It features a vibrant mix of facial expressions and dance moves. It was choreographed and directed by the talented Anjeela BK (dance instructor at ADS) and Merry Manadhar (dancer and active volunteer at ADS), with the support Gaya Dharmagesan of the Women’s Health program in the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. A Bangladeshi children’s dance group also performed at the event.
Magdaline Shenton-Kaleido, Team Leader for Emerging Communities at ADS, said that Screening Saves Lives’ partners incorporated dancing into the launch because arts programs and activities had been shown to make significant contributions to health outcomes, and encouraging participation.
“The NSW Government’s Health and the Arts Framework supports an arts- and culture-based approach to health promotion,” she said. “In this case, we believed the Nepalese and Bangladeshi dances would augment the project’s message that by participating in breast and cervical health checks, women can improve their chances of living a long and healthy life.”
Screening Saves Lives received funding support from the Cancer Institute NSW. Project partners included South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD) Priority Populations Unit, Central and Eastern Sydney PHN (CESPHN) and Advance Diversity Services. Importantly, Bengali and Nepali speaking community members assisted in co-designing and developing the resources.
Find the resources here:
Screening Saves Lives – South Asian Community in English
Screening Saves Lives – Nepalese in English
Screening Saves Lives – spoken in Nepali
Screening Saves Lives – Bangladeshi in English
Screening Saves Lives – spoken in Bengali