MARTIN KELLY: Martin Kelly at Pathways 13
in Canberra. I'm here with
Gabby and Cleveland and they represent the
Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience Program.
Now it's a great program that’s happening and
Gabby could you tell us a little bit about it.
GABBY: Sure, so the program is roughly
12 years old and started in Sydney
and has grown to be Nationwide
so, us here in Canberra.
This year we've seen about 300 mentees
so over 300 indigenous High School age
students coming to our program
which is mainly based at university site
so ANU and UC where we partnered them up
with university students as mentors to go
through sessions for personal development
and communication as a support for them
for indigenous success and
to get them to graduate high school.
MARTIN: Fantastic, and Cleveland
can you add anything.
CLEVELAND: I think the program
really speaks for itself. If we look at 2005
when a young man at 18 years old had
a crazy idea to put an end to inequality
of Education for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders high school
students. Working with 25 volunteer
University mentors, walking to a
school just down the road and
working with 25 indigenous
high school students to 12 years
later operating and running
the Theatre of Education 49
most important life lessons for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
high school students and we're currently
working with over 7000 Nationwide.
MARTIN: That's pretty impressive
statistics so if you’re here at pathways
come down and talk to Gabby and
Cleveland about the program because
there’ll be students that you will see
that are sure to benefit from it
and prospective students as well.
If you're not at Pathways how can
people find out about the program?
GABBY: Just Google us
- aimementoring.com and send us
an inquiry or email and someone
will get straight back to you.
MARTIN: Thanks Gabby
and thanks Cleveland.