The Mansfield E-café (Café Connect), Mansfield Vic

In 1999 the Delatite Council ran a youth forum at Mt Buller for about 100 young people. Few of the participants were optimistic about their futures and none thought they would be able to find work in their local communities. Nonetheless, many ideas flowed about what might be done to create more employment. Young people from both Benalla and Mansfield came up with the idea of establishing internet cafés – a "pragmatic" idea, as well as a popular one, since there was the possibility of funding from the Networking the Nation initiative. The two groups conducted considerable research with the help of a Council youth worker, visited other e-cafés, looked at local venues, and ultimately were successful in obtaining funding. Of course, these young people formed the selection panels which appointed the manager to each e-café.

The Mansfield group did not start out with a particularly clear vision, but gradually these young people have created a thriving business on the main street of town, called Café Connect. It is well integrated into the community and a range of young people use it. It has also captured the tourist trade. The group in Benalla was a little more interested in creating a place for themselves than in profitability in setting up ESCAPE – although it must be said the commercial opportunities in the two towns are significantly different. The two e-cafés have a very different feel to them but both enterprises have created some youth employment: Café Connect has established a traineeship position (which also allows the café to open for more hours); at ESCAPE when the Manager is on leave, youth fill the role on a paid basis.

The development of the e-cafes in the first couple of years illustrates well one of the elements critical to successful youth-initiated and run projects: the role of ‘experts’. Young people want to be able to work on the projects which they think are the best – they certainly don’t want to be told what to do by someone else. But they don’t want to be left alone, either, forced to work on the projects by themselves. What they want is an equal relationship with adults and, while this sounds a little obvious, it is actually a significant change in terms of ‘who knows best’.

A significant factor of the projects is that both communities are building on the success of the e-cafés to generate other enterprising activities including the young people hosting a ‘by invitation’ awards ceremony at the Benalla Art Gallery, Delatite Council winning a coveted grant which will pay 24 young people to research and audit the assets and opportunities in each town. Michael O’Meara from Changemakers and the Bank of Ideas who facilitated the initial youth forum observes:

It’s changed the way people look at getting started. Before you had young ideas but adults made it happen. Now it’s a partnership. But more, everyone has become very entrepreneurial. There was a FReeZA event [drug and alcohol free live bands and dance parties for 12-25 year olds] planned for one night. Since the gear was there, a group of young people decided to use it for an afternoon gig for primary school students. At $5 a ticket they made $1,000.

Café Connect, now referred to as the Mansfield E-café has been open for three years and for the past year has been funded solely by the Mansfield Shire Council. They have now been joined by the North Eastern Support and Action for Youth (NESAY) and a drug and alcohol worker also operates weekly open sessions from the café.

The E-café is still a popular spot for young people to hang out after school and is popular for computer games on Friday and Saturday nights. It is also now the home of the "Coz We Can" youth newspaper, a pilot project decided on by the young people. It is the venue for various meetings such as the monthly meeting for the youth provider network and the fortnightly meeting of the local youth group. This group have raised funds to buy a tv and dvd player for the recreation room.

The Mansfield community are still very supportive of the project and are keen to keep the e-cafe open and functioning.

SOURCES:

Interviews with Jane Archbald, youth development officer Delatite Council, March 2002 and with Michael O’Meara, Changemakers and Bank of Ideas, February 2002.

Information available from the Mansfield Shire Council website: http://www.mansfield.vic.gov.au/Page/page.asp?Page_Id=233&h=0 You are now leaving the DEST website