Nick Gabb knows first hand the challenges impacting Brimbank’s education centres. He spoke to Tate Papworth about how he’s trying to make a difference.
What’s your connection to Brimbank?
I’ve been working at Ardoch as the education partnership co-ordinator for the past six years for the western suburbs, which has a large focus on Sunshine and Brimbank.
What do you like best about the community?
I love the communities. I really love working with a diverse community. While there’s challenges, I like that we have the opportunity to provide education and support programs and make a real difference.
What do you think could be improved.
I think we could always do with more money. Funding for programs is a big need in the west. From a personal point of view, we do the best job we can with what we have, but being volunteer based… things can be challenging.
Tell us about your role
We have over 25 partners in west across three levels of education; early, primary, secondary. I’m a connector and so my role is connecting these partners with programs.
What are those programs?
We have a range of programs. One of the main ones is educational volunteers. We screen and train them, then we place them in schools and classrooms to help support classroom learning. We also have programs where we can take kids out on excursions and connect young people to possible role models.
What’s the biggest challenge?
Increasing workload because there is a need. All levels have needs and we’re growing. It would be great to have more multi-year funding. We don’t have a lot from federal and state governments, so more in that space would be great.
