SBS has launched Mind Your Health, a wellbeing program designed to provide aid to First Nations peoples and the multicultural communities of Australia.
An estimated two in five Australians aged 16 to 85 will experience a mental health condition during their lifetime – a widespread issue still considered taboo in many communities. In response, SBS has launched its Mind Your Health online content portal featuring articles, podcasts and videos in multiple languages, aimed at sharing the rich diversity of cultural knowledge and experiences across communities and showing pathways to support improving the mental and physical wellbeing of all Australians.
This follows the success of SBS’s multilingual Coronavirus portal launched in March 2020, which has received 11 million unique Australian visits accessing trusted in language information throughout the pandemic, from updates on changing restrictions to the vaccine rollout.
Mind Your Health targets culturally diverse, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander audiences with key focus on 10 languages – Arabic, Cantonese, English, Filipino, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Punjabi, Spanish, and Vietnamese – plus bespoke content for specific communities.
Mind Your Health also partners with industry bodies such as embracing Multicultural Mental Health on an in-language tool to help users assess their health and wellbeing.
SBS director of audio and language content, David Hua said: “There’s such a diversity of traditions, experience and knowledge about health and wellbeing amongst Australia’s multicultural and First Nations communities. SBS’s Mind Your Healthportalaims to share these stories with our audience’s preferred languages to show what’s needed and what works to benefit the health and wellbeing of all Australians. This includes combating prejudice and stigma, as well as improving the visibility of pathways to support and assistance.”
The portal will be updated regularly and serve as a hub for in language health and wellbeing content from across SBS and National Indigenous Television (NITV). It features SBS’s award-winning “Great Minds” meditation and mindfulness podcast which shares practices such as Filipino Hilot, Japanese forest bathing, and Hawaiian Ho’oponopono is now available in Arabic, Cantonese, Hindi, Mandarin and Punjabi; a video on the “early signs of mental illness”; and information on Australia’s mental health services in language.
