Zion Disability Services Inc.

We provide Casebased Advocacy including NDIS Tribunal Advocacy to people living with disability, Community Education on Disability and the types of Disability, Stigma and Shame, Domestic Violence, Mental Health, Refugee, and Citizenship Issues, and to connect People Living with Disability (PLWD) in Australia including those from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). We support people living with disability, their carers, families, and communities to access the community, access the NDIS, to understand the difficult to understand processes and procedures, and to navigate the system, access support services in the community, and to enable them to have a choice, find and utilise their voice to live a life they choose. We provide disability services to all Australians with disability but with a special focus of CALD communities. We are currently providing specialised individual advocacy including NDIS Tribunal Advocacy to 8 individuals living with disability. We hosted five very successful and well attended community fundraising events between December 2022 and June 2024 including two International Women s Day Fundraising Events to Celebrate Women with Disability, two Refugee Week Fundraising Events to Celebrate Refugee Migrants with Disability and an International Day of People with Disability movie night fundraiser. Our events saw 486 people from all walks of life including people living with disability, their families, carers and communities including those from CALD backgrounds, those working in and those interested in the area as well as government officials including Parliamentarians attend our events. 90% of our guests were people living with disability, refugee migrants living with disability, CALD women, new migrants with disability and older who were socially isolated because of language barrier, stigma and shame, lack of understanding, lack of support, religious and cultural practices as well as lack of transport to access the community. We were able to reach these people and their communities, and we provided them with transport to and from our community fundraising events. We were also able to give free tickets donated by our supporters to those who were not able to attend our to enable them attend our events. We also had guests from Interstate and those visiting internationally attend our events. We have been collecting feedback from our guests, during and after the events, and we have also been keeping a record of the people attending our events. The feedback we received was heartwarming, humbling and rewarding. People said that our service and community events were the first of its kind in South Australia, and that our community connections, engagement and participation are much needed not only in South Australia but nationwide to reach more socially isolated people, people living with disability and the most vulnerable people in our society.