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Meet our deadly IYMP Perth participants Terrence, Patrick, Bobby, Jahmal, and Reece, who have all completed their Certificate II in Civil Construction with Carey Training. These boys all moved away from their homes in the Kimberley, in WA, to join IYMP Perth and gain more educational and employment opportunities.

Whilst doing the course, the boys were lucky enough to be a part of a project that has never been done before on the Certificate II. The five boys all used their skills and training to make a concrete kitchen bench from scratch and install it. Since completing the Certificate II in March, four of the boys transitioned into doing the Certificate III in Civil Construction and will graduate this week.

We are all immensely proud of these boy’s hard work and achievements, and the whole IYMP family would like to wish them all the best in their future endeavours!

IYMP Brisbane have come up with a new initiative the ‘Give Back Friday,’ which is a day that our IYMP Brisbane participants give back to the community. Our first two ‘Give Back Fridays’ for IYMP Brisbane were volunteering to help and support the Brian Kerle Basketball Academy Basketball Clinics on the 14th and 17th of April.

Not only did the IYMP Brisbane participants feel great supporting our community, but also learning new skills which can help them in their future endeavours such as customer service, front of house and back of house responsibilities.

The IYMP Brisbane participants handed out flyers to upcoming Brian Kerle Academy events and helped set up the clinics beforehand. They also greeted, welcomed, and yarned with over 100 families, informing them of the COVID procedures, and assisting with the young people participating in the clinics.

The whole IYMP family would like to thank our deadly IYMP Brisbane participants for taking their time to volunteer and give back to community! We would also like to thank the Brian Kerle Academy for allowing us to be a part of these events, and we look forward to supporting you and your deadly team in the near future!

Meet our deadly IYMP Darwin participant Marietta Puautjimi, also known as Rayma. Rayma comes from Wurrumiyanga, formerly Nguiu, the largest community on Bathurst Island located on the Tiwi Islands. Rayma joined the IYMP family this year and is currently studying a Certificate II in Sports and Recreation at Charles Darwin University.

We are extremely proud to announce that Rayma won her Grand Final for the St Mary’s football team against the Darwin Buffettes at the TIO Stadium in Darwin. The total score was 65 against 13 in favour of St Marys, with Rayma scoring 3 of the 9 goals that lead the team to victory!

The whole IYMP family would like to congratulate Rayma on a deadly victory, and we wish her all the best in completing her Certificate II in Sports and Recreation!

Meet our deadly IYMP Brisbane Staff member and recent participant Nia Seden who has smashed another goal successfully completing her Provisional Driving Test in Brisbane. Nia began her IYMP journey in Brisbane back in 2018 in her third year of a Bachelor of Business Management.

After successfully graduating from Cairns State High School in 2014, Nia decided to pursue a degree in Business Management and join her sister studying at the University of Queensland. During her first year of university, Nia struggled with her studies while adjusting to university life being a long way from home and the support of family. However, Nia refused to quit and go home, and in her fourth year of her studies Nia joined IYMP. Nia heard about the project through her fiancé Lachlan, who IYMP had significantly supported through many of his academic, emotional, and financial hardships throughout his own University journey.

As of December 2019, Nia successfully graduated with a Bachelor of Business Management, majoring in Human Resources, and Nia is now working as a Project Officer in our IYMP head office at Brisbane. As a Project Officer, Nia looks after the administration for IYMP around the country, amongst the many demands of her role. The teams at head office and IYMP Brisbane love having Nia as a part of the team and look forward to watching her to continue to grow in this field of work. Nia has been incredibly successful in her studies and her work and was able to complete her driving hours with the support of IYMP and Omega Driving School.

“Getting my driver’s license was also another goal of mine, however, I found it quite difficult to achieve this goal as I had no available supervisors to help me learn to drive. IYMP removed such barriers in achieving this goal by funding driving lessons with a qualified instructor.”

We are all very proud of Nia’s hard work and achievements and we are immensely proud to Nia on our team here at IYMP. Nia has become a great role model for our IYMP site here in Brisbane and the whole IYMP family would like to wish her all the best in her future endeavours!

Meet our deadly IYMP Townsville participant Gebbie China who has successfully completed her Provisional Driving Test in Townsville.

Gebbie began her IYMP journey in Townsville back in 2017 moving away from Darnley Island in order to gain the skills and qualifications that will allow her to find full time work in an area she enjoys. Gebbie has successfully completed qualifications in the Individual Support area and is now in the last phases of completing a Diploma in Community Services.

Gebbie has shown her family back home, as well as her IYMP family here in Townsville, that you can achieve your dreams and goals with love, respect, traditions, and support of those close to her. Gebbie continues to make us all at IYMP proud every day and has worked hard to be able to recently obtain her Provisional Drivers Licence, through driving lessons with a local driving school and the PCYC Braking the Cycle Program in Townsville.

Gebbie has been studying her Diploma fulltime, works every afternoon and up until recently was completing her driving lessons. Gebbie is a great role model in our IYMP accommodation and always there for our new students coming through. Gebbie is a great cook and always makes sure others are looked after with a good meal and is always open for a yarn when the other participants need.

The whole IYMP family are super proud of Gebbie and wish her all the best as she is preparing for her work placement and starts the next chapter of her journey with saving for her first car!

Last week our IYMP Rockhampton staff and participants met with an ABSTUDY Travel Multi-Disciplinary Research Team and Services Australia member at the Brown St training room.

IYMP participants Blaine Saltner, Elizabeth Thaiday and Stacey Sailor shared their travel experiences with the ABSTUDY Travel Multi-Disciplinary Research team. The IYMP participants shared their experiences travelling from their remote communities and islands on ABSTUDY’s travel itineraries, the difficulties with connecting travel, as well as the many other struggles they endured in their secondary and tertiary education away from their home and family support.

The scope and objectives of the conversation were to:

• Understand if the administration of ABSTUDY travel policy is supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to take full advantage of educational opportunities available.
• Identify barriers that hinder or prevent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students accessing, attending or achieving their educational and cultural outcomes.
• Identify opportunities to improve travel experience for students and their families.
• Gather compelling stories of current travel experiences from customers, staff, third party organisations and other stakeholders to build evidence on reasons for change.
• Measure customer and stakeholder sentiment changes against research conducted in 2019 to understand impact of implemented changes on travel experience.

On behalf of IYMP we would like to thank our deadly team and participants at IYMP Rockhampton for taking the time to share your stories and your experiences. We would also like to thank the ABSTUDY Travel Multi-Disciplinary Research team for supporting young Indigenous Australians in their educational journeys.

Our deadly IYMP Brisbane participants were invited to perform at the Corporate Protection Australia (CPA) Group 2021 – 2023 Stretch RAP Launch on Thursday night.

After enjoying the performance at the IYMP Brisbane graduation ceremony last year, CPA Executive Chairman Harley Sparke invited the IYMP Brisbane participants to share their combined cultural performance at the CPA head office for their RAP Launch event.

Our combined cultural performance proudly showcases Aboriginal dances, inspired by our participants who come from over 20 different nations, as well as Torres Strait Islander dances from Mer (Murray Island) in the Eastern cluster of the Torres Strait. The performance also included a sit-down dance from the Torres Strait in which the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performers came together for a combined dance. This last dance was certainly a crowd favourite and a great opportunity to share our culture with the CPA staff members who were all very eager to join in and dance alongside us.

Our charter to young First Australians is to help them “Dream…. Learn…. Lead” and especially be proud of their culture and their identity. Shout out to our IYMP Brisbane staff member Kyran Creed, as well as our IYMP Brisbane participant Douglas Odo for their hard work and dedication to helping organise this deadly performance.

We would also like to thank all of the IYMP Brisbane participants who performed and those who came to support them last night. We would like to extend thanks to the Preston Campbell Foundation for their deadly service and delicious food, our patron Aunty Lorraine Hatton and her husband Dave Hatton, and our stakeholders at Corporate Protection Australia for inviting our IYMP Brisbane participants to be a part of such a significant event. Thanks again to all involved!

Meet our deadly IYMP Cairns participant Ivy Hodges who has successfully completed a Bachelor of Nursing Science with James Cook University. Ivy has always been passionate about taking care of others and decided she wanted to turn her passion into a career applying for a Bachelor of Nursing Science degree with James Cook University (JCU) in 2015.

“University was a completely different atmosphere to me and my immediate family, I was the first of my ten siblings and my parents to go to university and what a memorable journey it has been for us all. It was during a study session in the Indigenous Centre at JCU back in 2015 when I saw the IYMP staff promoting the program and I am so grateful that I joined this program.”

During her studies Ivy has dealt with some incredibly tough setbacks including losing her full-time job and one of her main supporters and hero, her late father. This is why we are extremely proud of Ivy’s hard work, her determination, and her resilience throughout the past six years, and we are proud to announce that this year Ivy graduated with a Bachelor of Nursing Science and is now a qualified Registered Nurse.

Ivy will also begin her 12-month graduate position working at the Torres Strait Island Hospital and Health Service. The whole IYMP family would like to congratulate Ivy on this incredible achievement and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours!

Meet our deadly IYMP Townsville participant Ra-Shaan Gibson who has successfully completed his Provisional Driving Test last week in Townsville.

Ra-Shaan started his journey with IYMP Townsville last year in January 2020. After leaving his community of Hopevale Ra-Shaan began studying his senior certificates with Tech NQ while residing at the NRL Cowboys House and has since transitioned into IYMP Townsville. Ra-Shaan is currently completing an Apprenticeship in Engineering – Mechanical Trade (Diesel Fitting) with local company Veolia in Townsville.

Having a driver’s license is essential in Ra-Shaan’s area of employment and is a big requirement within his Apprenticeship, so throughout last year and at the beginning of this year, IYMP supported Ra-Shaan with driving lessons through a local driving school in Townsville. After many driving lessons, Ra-Shaan’s hard work has paid off and we are incredibly happy to announce that he now has his driver’s license and is saving for his first car.

Since Ra-Shaan has been with IYMP, he has become a great role model for his community of Hopevale and for his peers at the NRL Cowboys house. Ra-Shaan often attends functions at the NRL Cowboys House as a guest speaker, and often speaks about his own journey as well as the opportunities and support he has had since being a part of IYMP. The whole IYMP family would like to congratulate Ra-Shaan on this milestone and wish him all the best in his future endeavours!

Meet our deadly IYMP Perth participants who have completed their apprenticeships with Programmed in January this year.

Since beginning their apprenticeships in 2017 the three Perth participants have each completed a Cert II in Engineering, a Cert II in Process Operations, and a Cert III in Process Manufacturing. Sterling Winmar successfully completed an Instrument Electrician Apprenticeship, while Billy Bowles and John Bin Sulaiman successfully completed a Mechanical Technician apprenticeship.

We are all immensely proud of these boy’s hard work and achievements and the whole IYMP family would like to wish them all the best in their future endeavours!