Students' Questions

"A society where everyone, regardless of background or disability, feels welcome, included and supported"

We receive many requests for information from students at school, TAFE and university so this section of the website provides answers to the questions students most often ask. It includes links to other parts of the website where you can find more detailed information.

We'll add more answers as we get more questions.
Please phone or email us if your question isn't answered here yet.

1. What is MDAA and how long has it been around?

MDAA is the Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association of NSW, the peak body for people from non-English speaking backgrounds with disability and their families and carers living in NSW.

MDAA is a community based association incorporated in 1995. The idea for setting up MDAA came from some of the work being done by the Ethnic Child Care Family and Community Services Co-operative.

Our members are people from a non-English speaking background (NESB) with disability, family members and other unpaid carers, and other people or organisations who support MDAA's aims, eg, disability advocates, health and community service workers, disability advocacy organisations, and other community organisations.

2. What are MDAA's aims?

To promote, protect and secure the rights and interests of people from a NESB with disability and those of our families and carers.

MDAA Mission and Aims.

3. How does MDAA pursue its aims?

Through MDAA services we provide are included individual advocacy; systemic advocacy; advocacy development; industry development; and training in disability and cultural awareness.

Also see the answer to question 7 for more details.

4. What is a community based organisation?

An organisation made up of people who join because they support the organisation's aims and objectives. The organisation's constitution is the document that sets out the organisation's aims and the rules for how it should be run.

Many community organisations receive funding from the state, federal and/ or local government/s to assist their work but they are independent of government/s.

Click here for MDAA's Constitition.

5. Who runs MDAA?

MDAA is run by a Board which has at least 6 and no more than 13 members who each serve for a term of 2 years. The Board is responsible for controlling and managing MDAA's affairs. MDAA's constitution provides that at least 50% of management committee members must be individuals from a NESB with disability and at least 25% should be family members.

MDAA's constitution provides for two main types of members: those who can vote (to elect the Board) and those who can't.

Members who can vote are the ordinary members (individuals from a NESB with disability, advocates, people with expertise in the disability and/ or ethnic field) and family/ carer members (people living in the same household in a family structure - family in all its forms). Voting members have the opportunity to elect members to the management committee at MDAA's annual general meeting.

Members who can't vote are associate members (any group of people - informally or formally incorporated).

Ordinary members who want to be on the Board can nominate themselves or ask another ordinary member to nominate them. So long as they have the signed support of two other ordinary members their nomination is accepted. If more members nominate than there are vacant positions on the Board, all ordinary and family/ carer members can vote for the candidates of their choice. For example, there are 13 positions on the Board and if 7 members have served for two years, there will be 7 vacant positions to vote for at the annual general meeting. If 9 members nominate for those 7 positions, all ordinary and family/ carer members of MDAA are invited to vote in the election. Each Board member serves for two years and can re-nominate at the end of their term to be on the committee for another term (up to a maximum of five terms or ten consecutive years).

The Board sets the direction for MDAA and decides which areas of work the organisation will focus on as priorities. These key priority areas are set out in MDAA's strategic plan.

• 121kb Strategic Plan.pdf
• 85kb Strategic Plan.doc

The Board members are all volunteers as MDAA's constitution prohibits a member from gaining any financial benefit from being on the Board. The Board has legal responsibilities to ensure that MDAA spends the money we receive for the purposes specified; that we don't get into debt; and that we manage any risks effectively, eg, financial, health and safety risks.

The staff (volunteer and employed) at MDAA do the work required to put the strategic plan into operation.

6. What is advocacy?

Advocacy has various meanings:

• to stand beside someone and support them
• to speak in favour of someone
• to argue in support of a cause or policy

At MDAA we see advocacy as standing with a person from a NESB with disability, assisting the person to get what they need and making sure their rights are respected, not ignored.

See the answer to question 7 for details of how we do this.

7. What services does MDAA provide and who can use them?

MDAA provides 5 main services: individual advocacy; systemic advocacy; advocacy development; industry development; training and information.

a) Individual advocacy

We help people to stand up for their rights, for example, when people have problems with housing, immigration, school, work and disability services. We do this for people from a NESB with all types of disability and their families and carers across NSW, from our offices in Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle and Griffith.

Any person from a NESB with disability or anyone who is a family member or provides unpaid care for a person from a NESB with disability can get assistance from one of MDAA's individual advocates if they have been unable to resolve a problem themselves.

The most common problems are about housing, employment, disability services, health, transport, education, immigration, police, the legal system and social security. Individual advocates work with the person to agree on an individual plan which sets out what actions the person will take and what actions the advocate will take to resolve the issue. We write letters, talk to service providers, attend court or tribunal hearings, participate in case conferences, etc, with and for the person to get what the person needs.

b) Systemic advocacy

We work towards positive change in policies, procedures, practices and service delivery in government and non-government agencies. If an issue affects more than one person MDAA can take it up as a general issue with the service or government agency concerned. We write letters to government ministers and submissions to parliamentary inquiries; organise meetings with politicians and senior public servants; participate in committees and working groups of community organisations who get together to try to resolve the issue through a united approach; we discuss issues with service providers; conduct research; etc. For examples of the systemic work we have done go to MDAA Systemic Index.

c) Advocacy development

We work towards positive change in attitudes and increased awareness among communities, with a focus on disability and ethnic communities.

Click here for our Advocacy Development Project Information.

We work to ensure that people from a NESB with disability and families know what our rights are as NSW residents and know how to ensure that our rights are respected, not ignored or infringed. We do this by providing education and training to people from a NESB with disability and families, to explain the rights of people with disability and to develop skills in advocating for our rights to be respected and upheld.

Every year staff invite MDAA members and consumers to a meeting to discuss what areas we should focus on for training and information over the coming twelve months. MDAA staff then arrange regular consumer forums throughout the year where members and consumers have the opportunity to discuss those topics with experts in the area. Examples are: what local councils do; how disability employment services can assist people to find a job; pre-election how to vote sessions with speakers from the Australian Electoral Office; discussing immigration matters with immigration experts; having experienced solicitors speak about workers' compensation rights and personal injury claims; having speakers from Centrelink discuss payments available to people with disability and carers; hearing from experts in public and community housing; having police and lawyers talk about criminal proceedings and courts.

We also hold disability awareness days for ethnic communities, to broaden the understanding of the various communities in NSW about disability and the services available to assist people with disability and their families/ carers.

Our regional 'Advocacy in Action' project assists people with disability living in rural and regional NSW to participate in their local communities. This project aims to set up sustainable self-advocacy networks where people with disability from the whole range of cultural backgrounds can work together to improve local conditions and contribute to resolving state-wide problems.

We also offer training for MDAA members and consumers who want to work with services and agencies interested in making their service more accessible to people from a NESB with disability. These members and consumers act as Community Voices, talking about their experiences of living in NSW as people from a NESB with disability and family members.

d) Industry Development

We work with communities, government and private agencies to increase knowledge and understanding of the experiences of people from a NESB with disability.

We do this by developing resources and providing information, advice, training and support and through our Community Voices project.

Community Voices are people from a NESB with disability and their families and friends who are trained in public speaking and who are willing to share their stories. This project uses the skills and expertise of the Community Voices to educate and raise awareness about the diversity of the community and how to provide better access to services for people from a NESB with disability.

MDAA works with a wide range of services to make sure people from a NESB with disability and our families have equal access to those services as Anglo-Australians. From Australian Bureau of Statistics Census and other information MDAA estimates that 1 in 4 people with disability in NSW are from a NESB (first and second generation NESB) but a recent Productivity Commission report confirms that only 1 in 50 disability service users are from a NESB. If people from a NESB were accessing disability services at a rate equal to our proportion in the community this figure would be 1 in 4, not 1 in 50. This means that at least 3 out of 4 people from a NESB with disability miss out on receiving services simply because we are from a NESB.
For details about how we calculated these figures see the first question at FAQ.

MDAA has been working to redress this imbalance by developing resources and publications for service providers to improve access to their service for people from a NESB with disability and our families and carers.

e) Training - 'mdaa cultural abilities'

MDAA also offers fee-for-service training in disability and cultural awareness through our training program 'mdaa cultural abilities'. We became a registered training organisation in 2004 and we publish a training calendar each year which includes courses leading to nationally recognised qualifications as well as other training - see our latest calendar for details. We also tailor training specifically for organisations or groups who prefer this.

We offer services the opportunity to do a cultural competence audit of their own service to work out how accessible their service is to people from a NESB with disability and families. We offer training in cultural competence for staff working in disability services and other mainstream.

Community Voices also make themselves available so organisations can hear first hand about the experiences of people from a NESB with disability and our families.

MDAA does not interpret or translate material for other organisations but we often use interpreters and translators in our work and we encourage other services to do this too.

We provide training and information on how to use interpreters and how to get good translations.

8. What is 'disability'?

A very good question. The answer depends on who you are and where you are from. When people think about disability lots of labels and classifications spring to mind: physical disability; intellectual disability; mental illness; sensory disability (vision/ hearing impairment); neurological disability; autism; learning disability; developmental delay; etc; etc. All of these concepts are culturally based - we are not born with any knowledge or awareness of what disability means - we acquire it as we go along through life and our views often change with experience.

In 2003-4 we asked 10 different communities in NSW this question and we received quite a range of answers. People from different cultural backgrounds have different beliefs about disability and different attitudes towards people with disability. Not all people from the same cultural background share the same beliefs and attitudes. Some people believe disability is a gift from god; others believe it results from something an ancestor did many years earlier; some believe it is associated with something that happened to the mother during pregnancy; others believe it is a medical problem that can be cured, either now or some time in the future.

For many people in Australia and elsewhere disability is associated with stigma and shame and this results in people being hidden within the family or taken to live in an institution, unable to participate in community life. Through the hard work of people with disability, our families and advocates over many years these negative attitudes are changing in Australia and the NSW government has stated its commitment to assisting people with disability to live in the community by closing down large institutions and providing other forms of support.

To see the variety of responses people have to disability go to Opening Doors Publications.

There are also some interesting philosophical debates about this question:

• Is disability an individual or family problem or does disability arise mainly because of the way societies function?
• Why do we as a society focus on what a person cannot do rather than what they can?
• Why do we label people 'disabled'?
• Why do we design buildings, forms of transport and services that exclude some members of the community? If all buildings, transport and services were designed to accommodate the needs of everyone in the community, everyone would be included as fully as possible and able to participate as equal members of the community.
• If people with disability work and pay taxes like everyone else why shouldn't our needs be accommodated just like everyone else's?
• What would a society look like if everyone's needs were taken into account by educators, planners, architects, engineers, designers, builders, governments, health services, etc?
• What would it take to make Australia a society like that?

9. Why does MDAA only work with people from a NESB - doesn't everyone with disability need advocacy support?

Good question. There are several organisations who provide individual or systemic advocacy (or both) to people with a disability in NSW, eg, NSW Council for Intellectual Disability; Physical Disability Council of NSW; People With Disability Australia; Brain Injury Association; and Family Advocacy. The Indigenous Disability Advocacy Service (IDAS) provides advocacy assistance to Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders living in NSW. MDAA is the only organisation that provides advocacy support specifically to people from a NESB with disability, their families and carers living in NSW.

We do this because people from a NESB with disability have such difficulty getting access to services [see the statistics in answer to Question 7 (d) above] for various reasons, including not knowing our rights, not understanding 'the system', and 'the system' not understanding us! We look forward to the day when MDAA is no longer needed because all services are accessible to people from a NESB with disability and all services respond competently to the needs of anyone eligible for their service, regardless of the person's cultural background.

Most of the funding we receive is specifically for providing advocacy assistance to people from a NESB with disability, their families and carers. For more details of what 'NESB' means see Figures Information.

10. Where does MDAA's money come from?

Most of MDAA's funding comes from the Commonwealth and NSW governments, through the NSW Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care (DADHC) and the Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services (DFaCS). That funding pays for most of our staff and the services we provide.

We also apply for grants from other government departments (eg, NSW Health; Premier's Department); local government (eg, Parramatta Council) and private foundations.

MDAA is a public benevolent institution and an income tax exempt charity. Donations to MDAA are therefore tax deductible. Anyone can make a donation to MDAA.

11. Is MDAA a government or non-government agency?

MDAA is a non-government agency.

For details see Questions 1, 4 and 5 above.

12. Does MDAA have any opportunities for students to do a placement or work experience?

Whenever we can we offer students at TAFE and university the opportunity to do a work placement at MDAA, particularly those studying social sciences, disability studies and associated areas.

We don't have the resources to offer work experience for secondary school students.

We welcome volunteers any time.

13. Where is MDAA?

Our main office is in Harris Park. Our regional advocates work in Griffith, Newcastle and Wollongong.

Click here for MDAA Contact Details Information.