At Carinya Society we work hard every day to realise our mission and philosophy on all fronts. We believe that being able to provide all our program participants with high quality activities and the same productive and fulfilling lifestyle that everyone in our community deserves is vital to our participant’s self-confidence and happiness. We believe one of the best way to achieve this is by incorporating the community more closely into the participant’s daily lives. This sort of human connection makes their daily pursuits more meaningful, creates opportunities to generate friendship and understanding between participants and those they interact with, and opens many doors to people with disabilities so that they can pick up new skills and try different activities.
As we commence term 2 of 2017, our offering of community programs is blossoming, with a variety of local groups reaching out to provide thrilling and fun experiences to participants every week. Depending on individual needs, Carinya participants are able to use our programs as a vehicle for personal development, socialisation, extending education, or just visiting new places.
Reaching out
It is heart-warming to see our participants interacting with new people from different walks of life. There is no doubt that these meetings usually enrich the days of everyone involved. Many of our current community programs facilitate this sort of socialising such as our volunteering program at the Lost Dogs Home, our Community Catering Group and our TAFE groups.
A structured environment or goal gives common cause to the participants and encourages everybody to cooperate and interact. This can be an ongoing project, such as the lovely vegetable garden our program participants have been working on and then in turn our catering group can use in their cooking, or one off projects such as a catering meal.
Skilling up
Many of our most recommended community programs are the ones which involve learning and personal development. The feeling of gaining and applying new skills is extremely rewarding for anybody, and we try to provide access to learning which is both exciting and beneficial to our program participants in their daily lives.
Our swimming program, held at the Coburg Leisure Centre, teaches key water safety skills in addition to swimming techniques. Our catering program gives participants the chance to hone food handling skills and get comfortable in the kitchen while preparing real lunches for real diners. Our travel training program makes public transport fun and accessible, with participants gaining this essential skill and personal confidence while also visiting areas in the local community.
Carinya is excited by the current broad offering of community programs, and we certainly plan to continue creating these opportunities for program participants as we move further into 2017. We invite you to click here to look through our new website and to read more about current programs, both community and centre based.