Quarterly highlights and challenges
Highlights
· Working and making significant progress with Girringun Aboriginal Corporation. While initially being accepted was challenging, however once accepted we have made good progress in a variety of projects. Taking the Girringun rangers and a 7 day retreat with Jeremy Donovan was a huge highlight as it was evident that the retreat helped the youth find their purpose and release a lot of baggage. Feedback from the youth and elders was overwhelming and clear that this was of tremendous value not only to the youth but also to their families and their wider community. Other projects that we have made progress on with Girringun are their Disaster management plan which EMQ are assisting us with and linking and building stronger connections between Girringun and other entities with their community such as the Cardwell Chamber of commerce.
· Cyclone Yasi Commemoration event was a huge success with over 350 community members attending as well as the Premier Anna Bligh, Deputy Prime Minister Mr Wayne Swan and Queensland Governor General Mrs Penelope Wensley. The event went very smoothly with many community members finding closure and reflecting deeply on the Effects of TCY.
· The Cassowary Coast Community Development Network meetings have been tremendous in galvanising all the agencies working within the region. All the Agencies are collaborating well and working together on all the projects being run in the region. These meetings have also aided in preventing the duplication of services and the community being bombarded by community development workers.
· The foreshore restoration has seen a huge interest from the community in the restoration of their rainforests and foreshore. To date there are 10 community groups that will be involved in this process with the CCRC coastal facilitator will be managing the restoration activities with the community development officers encouraging the social activities that will bring the community together and build those strong bonds and build a stronger community
· It is evident that many community groups are now in a position to focus on running more programs and activities and this has seen a huge increase in requests for assistance from the CDO workers. This has been wonderful to see the groups becoming more active and the community slowly finding their way back to a sense of normality
· CDO conference in Rockhampton was very beneficial as it gave us the opportunity to network as well as share ideas of potential projects.
· The training opportunities that have been made available to us, such as Trauma, loss and grief training and the IAPU2 training have been most beneficial to us and will aid us significantly in working with the community
Challenges
· Accessing the Flexible funding has been very difficult to date.
· While all the agencies have come together nicely, in the early days there was a bombardment of new community workers entering the communities. The agencies were not collaborating and there was a lot of duplication which I believe had a negative effect on the community.
· While we have made significant progress in working with some indigenous community groups, there are still some which remain closed to us.
· It has been challenging working under the council banner with many individuals and some community groups quite anti council, and thus trying to engage them and establish a solid working relationship has been challenging.
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