Waminda South Coast Women’s Health & Wellbeing Aboriginal Corporation, based in Nowra, has been awarded a $670,000 grant by the NSW government.

Waminda is a culturally safe and holistic service, providing Aboriginal women and their families an opportunity to belong and receive quality health and wellbeing support.

Waminda hopes to use the grant to build effective partnerships and to improve and coordinate palliative and end of life care for Aboriginal people. They will also offer specialist training opportunities for existing Aboriginal health practitioners and they also seek to increase death and grief literacy by improving awareness through education.

​​“This grant for the Waminda South Coast Women’s Health & Wellbeing Aboriginal Corporation will be an important step in offering culturally appropriate and high-quality palliative care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living on the South Coast,” says David Harris, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty.

The grant comes as a part of the End of Life and Palliative Care Non-Government Organisation Grants Program in which the NSW government is investing more than $3.5 million in funding over four years to increase community capacity to engage with death and dying.

Other than Waminda, five other NSW organisations have been given a share of the funding including Bullinah Aboriginal Health Service, the AIDS Council of NSW (ACON), Palliative Care NSW, the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia and the New South Wales Council for Intellectual Disability.

Minister for Regional Health and Minister for the Illawarra and the South Coast Ryan Park stresses the importance of this topic and believes funding must support all cultures and communities in NSW.

“End of life and palliative care for a loved one can be a challenging time and different communities have different needs and expectations during this period,” says Park.