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Hi I’m Tom I’m picking up the boys to go to work – part of the youth program,
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It’s going real good, the boys are enjoying it.
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Tom’s Youth Pathways Program is located in Ngukurr, a community 330 kilometers south
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east of Katherine in the Northern Territory. Lying on the banks of the Roper River and
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isolated by the wet for much of the year, the community of almost a thousand people,
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has learnt to become self-sufficient.
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Tom is the Youth Pathways supervisor and his first job each morning is to pick up his team.
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Youth Pathways is a local initiative that provides young people with skills, regular
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employment and a positive attitude on life.
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Bye now.
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Peter is one of the program’s success stories.
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I used to be fighting, smoking drugs, I used to be sniffing, I used to be breaking and
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entering. I finished up all that and stepped up.
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Another young man who decided to step up is Eric.
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I started liking this job, I started coming to work everyday. You get to use the tools.
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I feel like I’m doing something with my life, you know.
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Today, Eric, Peter and their team are constructing a new building at the recreational center
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under the watchful eye expert builder Adam McKenzie.
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They’re a bit harder than those ones because they don’t have much to sit on, you know.
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We are gunna be learning about tiling, welding,
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This program works because it’s building pride in the community and providing real
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skills.
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Skills which they can use outside of the community, and they can stand back and see what they
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have achieved and what they’ve built.
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BUT this is a big shower, this is the big shower. There used to be a back door over
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there,used to be, but it’s all changing now and we’re going to make it really change.
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And the changes Peter and his Youth Pathways team are making can be seen everywhere.
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A building that we’ve built,the airport shelter,there was nothing here and there was
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no shade, there was only sun. It’s our legacy you see, and we are really proud of what we
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done here and still we have to do more and more, we’re not going to stop.
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When I first got here the youth weren’t engaged in anything, they were just seen as
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a group of people who didn’t contribute to the community,that were thugs, that walked
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around, that didn’t contribute.
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And that’s the key to the programs success - valuing the contribution young people make
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to community life.
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We tried to find a way of engaging them and making them part of the community. The youth
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make up 50 per cent nearly 60 per cent of the population of Ngukurr and that’s the
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same right across Indigenous communities. So it’s really actually acknowledging that
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they do make up a significant part of the community and they need to start being valued
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a lot more and a lot more emphasis and resources put into them.
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Put them on the side,on the side.
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And obviously that had a whole flow on effect on range of things petrol sniffing, break
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and enters, anti social behavior and stuff like that.
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All this means less work for local police.
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A few of them were constantly involved in pretty much every court since I’ve been
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here, been involved in court in some matter or another. And um, since the program started
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they’ve got direction and are having some positive outcomes and no longer appearing
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in our courts and seem to be doing well.
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One of the reasons this program works is because elders like Kevin Rogers are right behind
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it, offering advice and support.
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You learn skills that you wouldn’t have it’ll be yours and nobody can take that
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away from you. And you don’t have to work here you can work elsewhere then.
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They asked me to talk with them to build up their self-esteem, to be strong and to come
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to work and to try and encourage them to be responsible and trustworthy and that sort
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of thing, you know that person, that young fella needs to develop himself and his work
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ethics. Ah,it’s encouraging for me to work with the boys, building them up as a young
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person and they really impress the community, and I’m very proud to be affiliated with
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them.
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Go up there and just do it, get a job. Come and do training be somebody. That’s what
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we wanna be, I wanna be somebody, yeah.
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And here being somebody is no different to anywhere else, you need to understand your
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roots and heritage.
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Western way and our Indigenous ways, if you don’t have an identity you don’t belong.
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If I be there I’ll know all this stuff to teach us all respect, that’s where I wanna
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be.
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We go through many obstacles to get these. Obstacles I think that will stop us from moving
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on. I go higher,I want to do this, I want to achieve something, I want to reach my goal,
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what I’m looking for.
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While Cherry gets the young men thinking right, sport plays a key role in keeping them on
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the ball.
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Sport and recreation, healthy lifestyle choices and then some other bigger picture stuff about
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them understanding governance and leadership and the way that the communities are changing
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and how they are an important part of that change.
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Rewarding the effort is also important and today the young men are going out bush to
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do what they love most.
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So this is another component of the Youth Pathways project. Tom the supervisor kind
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of assesses how the guys have gone throughout the week if they have turned up, worked hard,
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worked well he usually takes them out on an outing either once a week or once a fortnight
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to give them a bit of a reward.
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There’s nothing better than being part of a winning team based on life long skills and
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self esteem, and that’s what the pathways project is building.
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I want everybody to be here for the community and to make the community a better place,
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better country.
