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Media Release
New indigenous skill centre - training closer to homeK8709 16 September 1999
A $600,000 Commonwealth boost will give far north Queensland's Yarrabah Aboriginal community its own "home base" skill centre with training ranging from hospitality to child care. The Commonwealth Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Dr David Kemp, and the State Minister for Employment, Training and Industrial Relations, Paul Braddy, today jointly announced more than $600,000 for a new Yarrabah Community Skill Centre. "This new facility will provide more alternative training opportunities for the people of Yarrabah," Dr Kemp said. "It will give them access to nationally-accredited training without having to leave their home community and also support the business development and training activities of the local Bama Ngappi Ngappi Aboriginal Corporation." The Yarrabah Community Skill Centre is a joint venture between the Yarrabah Community Council and Bama Ngappi Ngappi . Bama Ngappi Ngappi employs around a dozen apprentices and trainees and runs a variety of businesses, including a building contracting firm, commercial dairy, a bakery, a fibreglass boat manufacturing facility and a retail outlet in Cairns for traditional handicrafts produced at Yarrabah. The new Skill Centre will offer pre-vocational, pre-employment and vocational training for school leavers, long-term unemployed people and CDEP workers, including Bama Ngappi Ngappi's apprentices and trainees. The centre will develop infrastructure and training programs to help community members acquire the skills and knowledge they need to improve employment options and improve quality of life in the community. Work is expected to start immediately and be completed by April next year. The new facility will provide almost 230 training places in nationally-accredited training courses in the first year of operation. Dr Kemp said the project represented the benefits of government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities working together to invest in the skills of Australia’s new and existing workers. The principal objective of this Commonwealth initiative is to provide capital funds for additional or improved vocational education and training facilities for training for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to allow them to undertake accredited vocational education and training courses. It is the Commonwealth’s intention that in particular, these funds will be available to assist in meeting the needs of institutions which are independently managed, to enable them to respond more effectively to the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Media contact: Samantha Herron 02 6277 7460 or 0412 639 754
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