It was an absolute honour to be guest speaker at St John’s Cathedral 19th Loaves and Fishes lunch in front of 500 people.
The beneficiary of this year’s luncheon was COOEE, an initiative of Indigenous Elders, who provide support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.
During my address, I stressed the importance of providing job outcomes to indigenous Australians and told the audience that our services go far beyond creating employment opportunities. We are:
• Self esteem generator.
• Role model creator for the local indigenous community.
• Initiator for financial security and a positive future.
The lunch raised over $46,000 for COOEE and I was delighted to be able to donate $10,000 as well as raising another $1,500 through the donation of an indigenous artwork from one of our indigenous programmes – GidjiArt.
GidjiArt sells quality Indigenous art and equips Indigenous jobseekers with the life skills, industry skills and work experience they need for a career in retail.
Based in Bundaberg, Shop 66 is a 10-week indigenous retail training programme which includes work experience and mentoring support to ‘get that job’.
