About us

At this stage there were no work rights or study facilities available resulting in new migrants suffering depression and resorting alcohol and drug abuse in order to deal with their pain. In response to these needs, the Jesuran Wellness Centre was established in June 2015 at 79A Herbert Street, Dandenong Vic 3175. The centre was open 5 days of the week with a pool table and meals being served free of charge.

We ran English classes helped with resume preparation, learner permits, and provided referral services. Health and other needs were met by in-house doctors and through fortnightly after-hours consultations by doctors who flew in from Brisbane with free medicines. Immigration  sessions and other useful information meetings were held with help from Centrelink and the Dandenong neighbourhood House. Many other alliances were also formed to help the settlement process for refugees and asylum seekers. We supplied free lunches daily to about 25 people including volunteers. We organized community networking and cmmunication meetings and events to help these refugees and asylum seekers assimilate into Australia. Monthly Men’s meetings were held and the Tamil AA was established and linked to the national AA web site with a team of 20 +volunteers to assist.

We had over 100 guests at the induction as well as at the first and second anniversary celebrations with the opportunity to work with the community, Dandenong Council representatives and other stakeholders such as food providers and facility providers. This resulted in increased supplies of dry rations and fresh food supplies from three food sources. We were thus able serve 200 asylum seekers a week. In March 2016 Jesuran empowered Sri Lankan Tamil women to become caterers at a special networking lunch and a directory with their telephone numbers was distributed. This was a very successful event. A successful play group for asylum seeker children was also commenced. This was called Possum Play Group and was run by two efficient coordinators and supported by the Dandenong council.

• In house Immigration lawyers and immigration advisers provided their services to clients who needed assistance on a regular is.
• In November 2016 an MOU was signed with AMES and we were given a building with an Administration Centre, Café and room a Play Group.
• In June 2017 a recipe book “Arusuwai Recipe Book” was compiled and launched with Julian Hill MP in attendance. At these  launch events 300 copies were sold with a demand for more books to be printed.

The Café was a success with AMES multicultural refugees and asylum seekers dropping in daily. We had about 50 to 60 clients a day till May 20, 2017.  With a steep drop in the clients coming to the café, we closed it in December 2017. Over this period of a year a table of fresh foods and dry rations were made available daily, giving assistance to almost 1000 multicultural refugees.
We also catered for 243 Rohinguan refugees, 350 staff and case managers. Several other small catering functions such as for the Noble park railway crossing project opening, medical associations, Centrelink etc. were also undertaken.

In 2017, 14 Burmese women were empowered by providing skills training in English language, fabric paining, bead making, and sewing for starting home based and professional businesses. These training classes were held by weekly.
During 2018 an innovative project “Pathways to Hope” was started. This program provided a holistic approach to help clients achieve their goals for education and employment by removing hindrances and blockages that were hindering their progress. Clients were thus successfully directed to a pathway of education and employment. This program was made available to anyone with needs who walked into our centre. In order to raise funds for these programs and to support the well-being of new migrants and to build up their confidence we held gala fund-raising functions, volunteer lunches, Christmas parties, picnics and several other events. Currently we are servicing and providing dry rations and fresh food to about 70 families in partnership with AMES in the global Café at the AMES Noble Park site. A dedicated band
almost 15 volunteers sort, clean, pick, pack and distribute this to these families every week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.