Young indigenous mentors connect

Aboriginal trainees are advancing cultural exchange in schools, writes Keeli Cambourne.

Simon Price, a school principal for many years, says one of the most endearing things he has seen was when he walked into a classroom recently and saw two of his students hunkered over an assignment with a teachers’ aide.

What made it special was the mix of those involved.

“There was one of our Aboriginal students, with one of our non-Aboriginal students, working quietly with our Aboriginal teachers’ aide, Mafi Kailahi, on a project together,” he says.

“It was wonderful to see. In many small regional towns like ours, seeing that can be quite unusual but that is beginning to be a more normal occurrence now.”

Price is the principal at St Mary’s Catholic School in Wellington, in the central west of NSW. Two young Aboriginal women have been working in the school as teachers’ aides for the past year as part of a federal government program that places Aboriginal youth as trainees in education support.

Price says the cultural exchange between the trainees and his students has made a world of difference to his school and the community.

“We have had older Aboriginal educational workers on staff, but having people the age of the trainees helps Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal kids across the school,” he says.

”The students look to them as mentors and although they work in classes which have predominantly Aboriginal students, their presence has helped with the whole culture of the school.”

The federal government has invested about $23 million in the Indigenous Remote Service Delivery Traineeships, which, from 2010 to 2013, will place trainees aged 15 to 24 in schools and indigenous childcare services in remote areas.

In NSW, 24 young Aboriginal people are undertaking traineeships in teaching-support roles, mostly in independent schools. Their influence has been far reaching, helping Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students make a cultural connection, says the national manager of indigenous programs at MEGT Group Training, Debra Nooyen, who places the trainees.

“Mafi Kailahi is focusing on her Aboriginal language and helping the Aboriginal students identify with their language, which in turn helps them with their literacy,” Nooyen says.

Another trainee, Casey Jones Fisher, is working at St Joseph’s Primary School in Eugowra and organised the school’s first NAIDOC Week celebrations this year, with people from her community in Forbes teaching the students dance, language and music.

Nooyen says the presence of trainee Paul Simpson, working at St Patrick’s Primary School in Griffith, ”is a positive representation of Aboriginal males” at the school.

For Kailahi, the traineeship means that she is not only enhancing her own educational skills, but can pass on some of her heritage and knowledge to the younger generation.

“I went to Wellington High School and left in about year 11,” Kailahi says. ”Back then there was not really a lot of support for Aboriginal people in school.

”Working in the school now is a great opportunity for me to help the Aboriginal students get the knowledge about their culture and heritage that I didn’t have and make it easier to combine that with the culture we live in.”

Kailahi says that knowing more about their background helps the students feel proud of their heritage.

“I was raised on a mission and that gave me a lot of cultural background,” she says. ”Teaching the [Wiradjuri] language is also helping me as well.”

She says her presence in the school ”is helping all students see that Aboriginal people can work in the community and, more importantly, in education.”

”I hope I am breaking down the barriers between the students, too, so they learn they should get to a know person rather than just think about their heritage.”

Article courtesy The Sydney Morning Herald
Monday September 12, 2011
Keeli Cambourne
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/young-indigenous-mentors-connect-20110911-1k409.html#ixzz1Xis2hsP8