Build on the Things that are Working!
Habitat, the well known South Coast of NSW IEP (Indigenous Employment Provider/Program) has made a powerful submission to the Forrest Inquiry into Indigenous Job Placement and Training.
The big message to the Indigenous Jobs and Training Review is that there is a lot of good will to employ Aboriginal people. However, the organisations and people that are capable of turning pledges and plans into real jobs are few and far between and are frustrated by the governmental process around jobs and training. Mainstream job services placement has become so large and disconnected that it has forsaken ‘the practical doers’ in favour of symbolism, bureaucracy and paper shuffling. The most common criticism that members of the Forrest review will have heard, is that job seekers are treated as numbers, and no one is making the connection between the street reality, the person, training options and an existing job that is available. As a result, Indigenous people. and job options readily available to them, in many parts of the country are like ships passing in the night.
But there is good work being done by IEPs - Indigenous Employment Providers/Programs - that are locally owned, managed and which have a strong combination of Indigenous know-how and employment placement experience. This is what the Forrest Review should build on.
The attached submission is a prelude to a larger review entitled "Conquering Aboriginal Unemployment on the NSW South Coast and ACT" that will be released by Habitat in the New Year.
The submission is available free to workingpapers subscribers. Please download the paper, share it widely and please also follow the links in the submission to hear the extended interviews with the people who really make things happen for Indigenous job seekers in the ACT and on the South Coast: the "street reality" of Indigenous job seeking and employment.
This paper is reviewed exclusively on the Sandy Dann Morning Show, Radio Goolarri, 99.7 FM Broome and is broadcast across all of the PAKAM (Pilbara and Kimberley Aboriginal Media) Bindanyoon Gardayoon - from the Desert to the Sea network radio stations - and through remote and regional Australia. You can listen to Sandy online by following the links at http://www.goolarri.com/radio
For more information about this submission contact Gerry Moore, Habitat Personnel, 02-44-223255
Downloadable files:
