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.