Cina
Founder and Facilitator of Melbourne Homeless Women's Peer Support Group
Biography
Cina is a mental health and disability advocate, and a masters of social work student. She is founder and facilitator of Melbourne Homeless Women’s Peer Support Group, providing peer support to homeless women and women at risk of homelessness or in unsafe or unstable housing, and providing one on one peer support. Her group is inclusive and welcoming to all LGBTIQA+ women, transgender women, gender diverse women, intersex peoples and non-binary peoples, who she supports in allyship, solidarity and peer support. She works in family violence policy-making and primary prevention and disability advocacy. She has previously studied drugs and alcohol and mental health, community development, sociology and Australian Indigenous Studies. She has worked casual alongside her studies, across multiple sectors in a number of projects and role's and committee’s: in disability, drugs and alcohol, mental health, family violence, and also she works in disability, family violence and mental health research.
Cina has been advocating long-term for systemic changes in the housing and homelessness system and services, the lack of accessible/flexible services, the lack of disability accessible housing for people to choose to live in the community and choose where they live and with whom they live, as well as to create a roadmap to free young disabled peoples from institutions and nursing homes. Her passions include animals, art, music, disability pride, swimming in the ocean and spoken word/poetry. Cina is neuro-diverse, she is living with multiple types of disabilities and caring for her family with disabilities. She wrote these two articles: