EXCLUSIVE
By PETER ROWE
An innovative education program in Broome, WA, known for teaching students how to build their own e-scooter is at risk of closing due to insufficient funding.
The Skill Engineer program will close in four weeks time if State and/or Federal support is not secured – and all the good work of chief executive Maggie MacFie and her team will be for nothing.
The program, which is sourced from small grants and donations — ends once a community outreach program on the Dampier Peninsula comes to an end next month.
The Skill Engineer program offers a number of initiatives, including the E-Cruiser project, where participants, aged between 14-18 build their own electric scooters and metal pieces, including furniture.
The program also covers rural skills, barista training, horticulture, and wellbeing workshops, including mental health and sexual health sessions.
And it engages with children who are not at school. Many haven’t been to school since Year Six.
“We try and engage with these kids in life skills,” Maggie said.
“They don’t engage with Shakespeare, but they do with skills that will help them in life.
“Many can’t read or write, they sign with an X, no basic literacy at all. So we have to find pathways for them to have a life as well as maintain their cultural links.”
The program works in collaboration with school terms and since its inception last year hasn’t seen a positive response.
As many as 25 per cent of participants have secured some form of employment and another 25 per cent have returned to school.
“They don’t engage with Shakespeare, but they do with skills that will help them in life.”
We knew traditional schooling wouldn’t work, so we had to come up with another way of engaging with them,” Maggie said.
“E-scooters seemed to fit, so do other elements like barista, hairdressing and horticulture.
Things like learning to grow your own food is very important. There are boys and girls programs.”
The goal, they say is to ‘enhance self-esteem, build resilience, and foster education, training, and community connections’.
“We even take them out to experience new things, a camel farm here in Broome for example. Or meet with local Indigenous Rangers. Every child has had that opportunity.”
As the programs are hands-on, they require a high level of support, which comes at a cost, but, as Maggie points out “how much does out cost to incarcerate a disengaged kid in a prison?”
Maggie currently has six, no, seven funding applications posted with several State and Federal agencies.
She’s hoping one, or two, will come good so the work can continue.
“A lot of kids up here in Broome need help. A four walls, white man education doesn’t always work. We have to ensure there is cultural context and life skills to what they learn,” she told ibnews.com.au
This year kids returning to school as result of programs like this has increased – 60 children in one term alone.
Juvenile crime is down 30 per cent, so something is working.
With the WA government boasting record surpluses, thanks to mining revenues, surely there’s enough to fund excellent programs as this.
For details: https://theskillengineer.com.aU
