Men Wathnak Group - Frontline Medical Hero of the Year

Company: Men Wathnak Group
Company Description: Men Wathnak Group, a mental health services for multicultural communities in South Australia, providing free counselling support and mental health care plan.
Nomination Category: COVID-19 Response Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Frontline Medical Hero of the Year

Nomination Title: Wathnak Vy

Wathnak is a registered counsellor and clinical psychotherapist with the Australian Counselling Association (the ACA), the largest national registration board for counsellor/psychotherapist in Australia. Since the pandemic started in February 2020, Wathnak was the first Cambodian-born counsellor to see the need for a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) community in South Australia. Without any grant or funding from the government or any private sector, Wathnak used his saving to create an online zoom group where people can join and share their feeling and emotion.

The group started with 3 people from his network and increased to more than 500 people, most likely CALD seniors and international students who cannot go to their home country.

Wathnak completed double degrees of Bachelor of International Development and Bachelor of Social Sciences at the University of Adelaide. He is currently completing his Master of Counselling from the top counselling university in Australia, the Edith Cowan University. He received the South Australian 2021 Australian Day Award for Leadership and Cultures and 2021 Young Citizen of the Year Award for the Adelaide City Council.

Many young people at his age would spend their night watching entertainment or play the online game. On the other hand, Wathnak spent his time every night since February 2020 never miss a day to provide free counselling support, both individual and group counselling to the community members who are in need.