A continuation of the blog from Joy Handicott and Lorraine Erlandson, the Community Educators travelling on the MoneyMob Talkabout program
We left Wadeye at 7.50am to drive to Palumpa, arriving at 8.30am.
Today we worked with 2 middle year classes (26 students in total), in 2 separate sessions.
We used store catalogues (from Darwin) and calculators. After some discussion around Australian currency we focussed on the value of notes. Each student was allocated $50 to spend on items from their catalogue. They could purchase a single item or numerous items to a total of $50 or less. Then each student had to calculate how much change they would receive.
We then spent some time engaging with the local community. People seemed genuinely interested in our program.
Lorraine and I travelled back to Wadeye at lunch time, and spent the afternoon exploring Wadeye to gain some ideas for next week’s visit. We have set aside some time for an I-talk translation to be done by Adrian who works for CentreCare out here. We have also been invited to talk to the women who are involved with the Women’s Resource Centre.
We have an appointment to meet with the Principal of OLSH school next Wednesday morning to talk about our program.
There is NAPLAN testing at all of the schools out this way from 10 – 14 May, so we may not have much success in accessing the school next week. However, there are many groups and organisations we can tap into in order to work with groups of community members, so this may become our focus next week.
The accommodation facility where w e are staying out here has provided a great networking opportunity. At the moment there are 3 workers from the Centrelink Remote team visiting. The purpose of their trip is to focus on Parenting payments and school attendances. There is also the Remote Manager for Traditional Credit Union visiting.
Our conversations around the table of an evening have been lively, and it is a great opportunity to promote our program and gain information about other services.
We are looking forward to driving ‘Ethel’, our Troopy, out next week.
