Recently MADALAH did a huge tour of the Goldfields region. The objective of the regional tour was to meet with families, local community members, service providers and schools to spread the MADALAH message of engaging Indigenous youth in private school education.
On Monday 22nd November we set off on our six-hour drive to Mt Magnet where we visited the Mt Magnet District High School, WA Police, Yulella Aboriginal Corporation, Mt Magnet Shire and the Regional Health Service. It was great to find out about the town and share information about MADALAH opportunities for secondary education.
Leonora was our next stop, where we had the opportunity to catch up with current scholar Corteaha and past scholar Amber in their hometown; it was great spending some time with the girls outside of the schooling environment. We also engaged in some very good conversations with members of the local school and surrounding organisations.
After a good night’s rest, we continued our trip east to Laverton where we spent most of the day talking with the local school and community members about MADALAH opportunities for local kids to better their education. We also gave away MADALAH showbags to a few lucky students. We then set off on our way to Kalgoorlie to settle in for the night.
The next day we met with the program coordinator for the Australian Aboriginal Mining Centre and Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University – Kalgoorlie Campus. We also met with the local Kalgoorlie Primary & High Schools. Kurrawang was the highlight of our Kalgoorlie visits where students from years 4, 5 & 6 sang I am Australian to MADALAH staff in the local Wongutha language. It was a very humbling experience! It was also great to be joined by our ambassador Des Headland who continued on the rest of the tour with us.
In the afternoon we met with local families at Kingsbury Park to hand out brochures and share information about MADALAH and what we do. A long day done; it was time to hit the hay.
Norseman District High School was one of our next two destinations, this was a drop-in visit to chat with the teaching staff and share information about our scholarship program. We then continued on the road to Esperance which was a great change up from the dry red dirt with its beautiful blue beaches. Throughout the day we had the chance to meet with families, local organisations, schools, a mother’s group and child care centre to see if there were opportunities for Indigenous students to pursue further education or study outside of Esperance.
Throughout the trip we were able to gain a better understanding of each town we visited and learnt about the issues and boundaries for young Indigenous people in the region. We hope that our information sessions and talks have inspired interest from students and families who might like to apply for MADALAH scholarships going forward; producing more up and coming leaders for the future.
MADALAH would like to thank each of the elders, families, community groups, service providers and supporters for their time and feedback during our regional tour. We look forward to connecting with you all again soon to help achieve better outcomes for our youth!
