Our community has a lot to share including stories of strength, resilience, challenges and trauma. Over time, we will capture our communities stories in various way and share them to the world right here.
We have stories from our members, from our project partners, from people who benefit from our projects and the wider Latrobe Valley community through our ‘Story Share’ form below.
So sit back, and get ready to be moved by our community.
“I think when you start living in some place… if you give that community and that place your best… it gives back to you.”
Arfa Sarfaraz Khan is a pillar in the Gippsland community for her commitment to creating opportunities for intercultural engagement and interfaith dialogue, supporting migrant and refugee women and advocating for them in the community. Earlier this year she was awarded the Volunteer Leadership Award by Volunteering Victoria and, if you know Arfa, you’d know just how deserving she is of the honour.
Joining the Latrobe Health Assembly back in 2017 – Arfa brought with her a voice attuned with advocacy and leadership and a deep connection to the local community.
“I think… they really wanted to capture another voice and get the involvement from a different perspective that might not come easily within the broader community,” explains Arfa.
“I said ‘yes,’ and I have been with the Assembly since.”
“People come from different backgrounds… [They have] different experiences. To capture that, I think, is really, really important.”
Originally from Pakistan, Arfa and her young family moved from Wollongong to Gippsland in 2012 for work. Since 2015, she has served as the President of the United Muslim Sisters of Latrobe Valley – an organisation working towards an integrated society with empowered women, confident youth and male champions.
Arfa is also helping to ensure regional perspectives are represented at a state-level through her role as Board Chair of the Islamic Council of Victoria and her work with the Victorian Multicultural Commission, and holds a seat on the board of Gippsland Centre Against Sexual Assault.
Although pleased by the valuable projects the Assembly has delivered so far, she still sees opportunities to do more, especially in response to the impacts of COVID. She feels the best way to address these impacts is to continue listening to and working with the whole community to achieve systems change.
“Whatever has happened has happened,” she explains.
But, by staying open-minded and curious, Arfa hopes we can continue to learn and improve.
“The day you say you are the best…you have stopped learning.”
“I feel that your passage in life is a bit like one of those parlour games where you ‘flick, flick,’” Peter explains, as he mimes using a pinball machine.
“As the token goes up, you’re flicked, and you go across the board and then you’re flicked to the opposite side, very little control, if any! My path through life has been somewhat similar: certainly, it has been anything but a uniform trajectory.”
Peter joined the Latrobe Health Assembly as one of our volunteer Assembly Members in late 2023. He had seen references to the Assembly in the local press, interested, he decided to learn more, and as a result applied to become involved.
Sitting down to speak with Peter strikes parallels with the pinball metaphor he uses to describe his life. The conversation bounces joyfully from topic to topic, including mine rehabilitation, the Pepsodent toothpaste jingle, author and illustrator Alison Lester, and the delight of train rides.
While many will recognise Peter from his volunteering, others will recognise him from his work as a surgeon.
Peter moved to the Latrobe Valley in 1987, when an unexpected job opportunity saw him relocate his family from Kew to Moe.
Peter explains that Latrobe Valley surgeon Mr David Birks approached him at a surgical conference in Perth, Western Australia. The pair introduced themselves, and David explained that there was an urgent need for a General Surgeon to move to the Valley and asked the Melbourne-based, ‘well-connected’ Peter to assist: much to David’s surprise, following their discussion, Peter expressed interest in the job himself, and agreed to come and inspect on his return East.
“I was so busy in my Collins Street Rooms; I had never had more patients referred to me than the day I had chosen to go down to Moe to survey. It’s amazing, life, isn’t it. I had battled on my own to build a practice and I finally achieved it: I was very tempted to change my mind and apologise as something else had come up.’”
“Nevertheless, I went and realised that the atmosphere was so welcoming: it was friendly, it was professional… and the work they were doing was just what I wanted to do.”
“I drove back to Melbourne, and said to my wife, ‘I love it. I think I’d like to apply for the position.”
“My application proved successful, and work commenced in August 1987, residing in the old Nurses’ Home at the Latrobe Valley Hospital. Much time was spent finding a new home and then my family joined me in January 1988 and have called Latrobe Valley home ever since.”
People will often approach Peter in his local community and thank him for the care he provided to them or a family member. “I love it,” he reflects fondly, “because people remember me."
Peter has also received many formal accolades throughout his career, including being elected the first Medical Chairman of Maryvale Private Hospital and being a Foundation Fellow of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.
“My greatest honour was being elected a Fellow of the Australian Medical Association, which is very rare: for services to the medical profession and the community.”
Peter’s role with the Assembly is just one of many ways he is currently giving back to the Valley.
“When you retire… you come to the cliff,” Peter laughs, as he gestures dropping over the edge.
“[You wonder], what am I going to do with my time? Slowly but surely, I’ve been building other connections… I’m the Chair of the Latrobe Regional Gallery Foundation… we raise money to acquire artworks for the Gallery and that takes a lot of work: I also support Moartz.”
Since joining the Assembly, Peter has taken a particular interest in some of the nutrition-related projects, including the Healthy Supermarkets initiative and some recent food systems mapping. He is also interested in physical fitness and the Assembly’s Physical Literacy work.
Peter reflects that he joined the Assembly because he wanted to contribute, “purely as a volunteer, to assist in any way. And from a totally different perspective, as a surgeon.”
“Anything I can do to advise, help, suggest… I’m here to serve.”
“To see my name on a large whiteboard, that we lost our property. I’ll never forget that.”
“Going through the… Black Saturday bushfires, that’s where it all started because I lost everything.”
“[It] was really horrific, and something you never forget but coming out of this tremendous experience, you grow.”
Tineke’s optimism and warm smile will be familiar to many across Gippsland. She has brought a range of creative community projects to life in the Valley over the past decade, including through her current roles managing Latrobe Valley Choir and the YES I CAN! Gippsland Choir.
Tineke is also one of our wonderful volunteer Assembly Members. Tineke joined the assembly in late 2023. Asked what motivated her to join, she explains it is the collaboration and “all the different connections the Assembly has created.” Tineke says that being an Assembly Member has also given her opportunities to explore and understand her passions more.
Tineke has called Latrobe Valley home for 22 years. She recalls being curious about all her new neighbours after relocating from The Netherlands.
“In the Netherlands you live very close and on top of each other, so you know everybody very well. The country is as big as Gippsland and with a population of over seventeen million people, you can imagine what the infrastructure is like.”
“When I came [to the Valley] I invited all my neighbours to introduce ourselves and for me to know who I was living next or nearby to. They all liked the invitation and were like ‘Oh, that’s nice! We have never been to this house!’ We became friends for life!”
Such friendliness and connection are hallmarks of Tineke’s work and reflect her community spirit. However, she reflects that losing everything in the Black Saturday Bushfires is what really started her advocacy and community work here in Australia.
“I lost my father exactly a year before the bushfires… [He was a] very creative man. He loved composing and arranging music. He played his grand piano every day. Our house was filled with music and song. Before he retired, he was a graphic designer. He also made beautiful drawings and paintings; I have many special memories.”
“All that we had after the fire was a block of land, so we had to start again.”
Tapping her finger on the table rhythmically, Tineke continues. “When we were re-building… I tapped music all night long… I was terrified to lose my father’s music because I had lost it all [in the fires]. I thought, “If I tap, I remember. I sing it in my brain, so I won’t forget.”
Tineke played a pivotal role in advocating for the rebuild of her community. Inspired by music and her passion for hearing and sharing stories, she also initiated the Janus Project.
This community written play helped to share local experiences of the fires. Tineke spearheaded the concept, and brought the community together, including people who went through the disaster. “We bonded. We got a whole new group of people together, sharing the joy of music and theatre, it was fabulous.”
Tineke has continued to share the joy and power of music across the Valley with projects like The Street Requiem with Jonathon Welch and No More Excuses. Connecting and collaborating with our community, by giving people the opportunity to share their stories and experiences through inclusive arts projects. Giving people a sense of belonging.
During Covid, Tineke and Jonathon worked with LHA and many dedicated members of the Valley community on the My Valley, My Home project. A fantastic celebration of the Valley which you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpgcON4hhfk
Tineke is also a strong ambassador for the Assembly’s Hello campaign as she loves its simplicity and emphasis on people and connection.
Collaborating with people is Tineke’s passion and this is what she enjoys most about her role as an Assembly member. Getting to “[listen] to other people and listening to all their stories and what is important to them.”
“I love learning new things and I think the Assembly [provides] that opportunity.”
“I worked in… [the] birth suite for twelve months after that and had a ball. I really enjoyed that work.”
“You get to spend time with people at the best parts, the happiest, and sometimes the saddest parts of their life. So that’s a real privilege.”
Don McRae will be best-known by most in the community for his role as CEO of Latrobe Regional Health (LRH). LRH is one of the Foundation Agencies that help to make up the LHA Board. Don sits on our board, alongside other Foundation Agency CEOs, and our community Board Members.
Don’s ability to thrive in dynamic environments has seen him excel in a number of roles and regions across Victoria over his forty-year career in health.
“I’m basically a nurse,” explains Don.
“I started work in the Northeast of Victoria in Wangaratta. I did my nurse training there and progressed through to RN and then I moved to Melbourne to undertake midwifery training.”
Don describes his time in midwifery at Mercy Hospital for Women as both physically demanding and “a real privilege.”
From there, Don moved into a number of Intensive Care based roles in Melbourne hospitals, before moving to Horsham to accept a Nurse Unit Manager job in the Emergency Department.
“I had never been out to that part of Victoria before.”
“I shifted my family from the centre of Melbourne… to the centre of the Wimmera which was really quite a culture shock for all of us.”
After over twenty years in Horsham, Don and his family made another big move across the state to Gippsland.
“It was really… it was a distance change because I came from one side of the state to the other.”
“The weather’s different. There’s wet stuff that falls from the sky called rain here,” Don laughs.
“We don’t have much of that in the Wimmera. Also, from a cultural point of view, you know, I came from a community that was very much agricultural based and also a community that was shrinking in size to an area where there was a heavy industrial base and also extreme, enormous growth in population… it was a real eye opener and a challenge… I learnt something new every day which I thought was amazing.”
Don’s passion for learning and new challenges is also reflected in his hobbies, which include restoring vintage cars.
“I like challenges… [and] keeping busy.”
Asked what he enjoys most about his role on the LHA Board, Don explains,
“The thing I enjoy the most… is the engagement. And I think that, that is what I enjoy most about working in rural and regional health.”
“[I]n metropolitan health… you’re a little bit removed from your community, whereas in regional and rural health you’re hard up against your community.”
“I think the most fun part about the Assembly is I get to see different parts of the community than I would in acute health.”
“We get… to do visits out to, say, the Aboriginal Men’s Shed in Morwell… [and] to come into Assembly Meetings and sit in amongst the community where people come from all different walks of life.”
“[It’s] interesting to be able to take on board all those different points of view.”
“That holistic approach to health and wellbeing, rather than having an illness-focus, is really, really satisfying.”
Reflecting on the power of LHA’s full Assembly meetings, Don commends the volunteer members who dedicate their time to important community causes.
“People have been really generous with the Assembly. They’re happy to sit down and talk open and honestly about what really matters to them.”
“I think the uniqueness of the Assembly is that it is for the people, by the people.”
“[We] engage people where they’re at, build their literacy and build their capability and capacity to contribute, and then get them to… help co-design solutions.”
The Assembly is currently delivering over thirty projects designed to help identify and test out new ways of improving health and wellbeing outcomes in the Valley.
For Don, the Little Village Project is a highlight.
“I really like the Kindred Spirit one… the Little Village. That is a model that is so easily scalable. And, you know, you can see really good, really, really big outcomes and improvements from very small investment.”
“It’s something that I hope that government look at in the future and take on board, because they’re always looking for big impact from small investment and I think this really has that potential.”
“Oh, and I love the Dolly Parton Library. You know, I think… the biggest gift my father gave to me was the gift of a love of reading. And I think that if we can instil that in young people, I think that has real potential.”
Looking to the future, Don hopes to see the Assembly tackle new challenges and become self-sustainable.
“The approach of the Assembly to community development, I think, is really interesting and I think there’s a lot of things that we have done that have been really innovative but there’s [also still] … a whole lot of potential.”
“[We have] high levels of poor outcomes in areas of diabetes, cancer, and cardiac disease... It is a unique community, and I think that the Assembly plays a really important role in developing us to a level of health that is commensurate with… [the rest of] the state.”
“I would like to see the community embrace the approach and make it sustainable going into the future. I think that, you know, we live in a society today where people don’t value health until they lose it.”
“I think that if we can get a shift in mindset where people say ‘well, [my health] is really important. Like, I’ve got this, this piece of equipment that’s been given to me that is my purpose and my reason for being’”
“When we get to that point… a body like the Assembly will be self-sustainable because people from the community will see it is worthwhile investing in.”
When Ben Tunks, a school wellbeing officer at the time, realised how common it is for teachers to spend their own money on students, he knew he had to do something about it – so he called on his community to help build The Little Village Project.
In a previous role within a family service, Ben couldn’t source funding for a school uniform for a child in care, so he and his wife paid for it themselves. The purchase was more than just a uniform – it meant that the child in care could attend the same school as his cousins and stay with his family. It went a long way towards providing security, consistency and a loving home. Simple actions like this can change a child’s life and he knew others out there would be ready and willing to make a difference.
“I didn’t want any more kids to slip through the cracks again,” said Ben.
Determined, Ben reached out to his connections – John Mitchell, chair of Gippsland Regional Executive Forum, and even his own sister-in-law who worked for a branding company.
“I leveraged John’s connections to funding opportunities and business representatives to share my idea for The Little Village Project.”
“I had 20-minutes to present, met Rhonda Renwick, founder of Kindred Spirit Enterprises and Shaun Mallia, who at the time was working for AGL Loy Yang. Rhonda Renwick visited Stockdale Road Primary School and offered to auspice the project through Kindred Spirit Enterprises and leverage her deductible gift status.”
From there the ball was rolling. David Hackford from Littleton Hackford Solicitors volunteered to be chair of The Little Village Project advisory group and he donated to get the project up and running, so did John Mitchell, Alan Wilson Insurance Brokers and a few other businesses involved in Gippsland Regional Executive Forum such as Latrobe Valley Bus Lines.
Shaun Mallia joined Kindred Spirit Enterprises as Executive Officer and secured significant multi-year partnerships with the Latrobe Health Assembly and AGL Loy Yang.
“I went along to meet with AGL, so nervous to ask for $30,000, and walked out of the meeting with $90,000… a welcomed surprise.”
As more primary schools came on board, Ben helped staff to put their ideas to support students into action regardless of funding. If they have a wish list for a child or family, options can be pursued.
“It was important to show staff that no idea is a stupid idea and that it’s better to ask and fail than to not ask at all, as it means they’ve done all they can. Brilliant ideas are submitted by the staff at participating schools that I would never have thought of myself. It’s inspirational.”
2024 was a big year for The Little Village Project, with nearly $70,000 spent on interventions to keep students engaged in primary school. This can include mental health care, speech therapy, and sensory support but is purposefully broad so that it can cover the specific needs of the children it supports. In the same year, Ben was able to come on board as the Project Lead of The Little Village Project thanks to extra funding from the Latrobe Health Assembly.
The Little Village Project currently supports five local primary schools. With 29 schools in the Latrobe Valley school network, Ben estimates it would cost $1,000,000 a year to cover them all. With the support of Kindred Spirits, Ben is focussed on seeking ongoing funding and donations from other large companies, local businesses and organisations, and community members.
“My goal is to achieve a joint effort from a range of different businesses who want to chip in. If other regions saw the project and wanted to pick it up, that would be awesome.”
“What I really want for the Latrobe Valley is for as many kids to have as many positive experiences before they turn 12 as possible. Wrap the protective factors around the kids; education and all the things that come with it. The longer you stay in school, the longer you’re surrounded by attuned early childhood experts who are providing care while you’re at school.”
After all, it takes a village to raise a child – and our village is The Little Village Project.
Learn more: https://www.healthassembly.org.au/projects/the-little-village-project/
Donate to The Little Village Project: https://www.givenow.com.au/tlvp