City of Parramatta Council has awarded Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) a $10,000 Community Capacity Building grant. This comes as part of the Council’s larger Annual Community Grants, aimed at supporting projects that build community connection.

The grant will go towards creating a new Remote Working and Community Participation Hub at CMRI, upgrading one of our meeting rooms with all new camera and microphone equipment for online video conferencing. This week alone has shown the importance of staying at home and with staff both on and off-site, communication between the two groups is key.

With the City of Parramatta’s support, CMRI aims to host in-house meetings, seminars and events that can be viewed remotely. Instead of having a host speaker lead the meeting from behind a laptop, relaying in-person discussions to off-site participants, the entire room will be visible and all attendees will be able to see, hear and communicate with one another at the same time.

The communication hub isn’t just for internal use, but also for connecting CMRI with the community. Our volunteers, committee members, partnered businesses and schools, and valued donors will be able to remotely log in and hear from scientists about their work, giving those who can’t gather in person an opportunity to still see what’s going on at the institution.

Regardless of COVID-19 or any other circumstance that would prevent supporters from gathering physically, CMRI feels everyone should still be able to get involved and support the fight against children’s genetic diseases. CMRI thanks City of Parramatta for their support and looks forward to seeing you online in the near future.