With your help 100 WOMEN has awarded 13 grants over the last 4 years totalling nearly $400,000. This year, the Advisory Board is committed to sharing the impact of these grants with all of you.
To begin with, as four project grants wind down over the coming months, we will share their inspiring impact on both their participants and wider communities. In addition, we will provide you with regular updates about our newest grant recipients: Earbus Foundation, Bower Reuse and Repair Centre, Human & Hope Association, and Youth Futures WA.
To kick off the 2018 impact stories, we are pleased to share firsthand testimonials from participants in the 2016 grant awarded to the Telethon Kids Institute, the “Upskilling Aboriginal women to become community leaders” project.
Under this project, fourteen Aboriginal women from nine different remote Fitzroy Valley Aboriginal communities have been attending a Certificate II in Community Services course at North Regional TAFE. In addition, they are receiving employment and training from Telethon Kids Institute to become community researchers on a two-year Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) intervention research study, called the Alert Program®. The Alert Program® aims to improve self-regulation and executive functioning in children with FASD, a disorder which can lead to poor educational and social outcomes as children struggle to cope with the demands of school and community life.
Specifically, a 100 WOMEN grant of $39,450 funded enrolment in the TAFE course for the women, uniforms, training materials & literacy tuition. In addition, our grant funded the cost of travel and accommodation for some of these women to attend training workshops and cross-cultural knowledge sharing at Telethon Kids Institute.
The following testimonials highlight some of the long term benefits this grant has offered for the participants and their communities.
What has the 100 Women grant meant to you?
- “(I) loved how we had the opportunity to go to Perth. I learnt that Telethon is an Institute for all types of research. Training was good and I got to meet everyone else there. It was very interesting to meet with others. Coming from a community to Perth I learnt a lot. We gave questions and got answers and shared our answers to questions.”
- “TAFE training has been great, I’m learning lots like working with diversity in communities. The course will help me get a job anywhere. Group learning has been great – it’s supportive.”
- “Well for me I think the course is good like how the lecturer talks to us for how to run our own community. She even told us for different ideas in the community and how we can work together as one as black fellas. For me doing this course give me more good ideas on how we can help each-others as different family groups and getting to know each-others back ground in our community and sharing good ideas in different ways.”
What do you like about working on the Alert Program project?
- “Working with kids and parents”
- “Learning more about kids with FASD and how can I get these kids to learn and understand more better in the classroom”
- “I like working on the Alert Program project because I am excited to meet other parents and researchers from the community”
- “telling people that we have a way in helping children do good in school. Working with different people”
What hopes and dreams for the future do you have for children in the Fitzroy Valley?
- “that all children have a better community to live in and get better in school”
- “Their education and staying in school so they can have a good future good job”
- “go to school and learn how to find a job when they get bigger”
- “live their dream. Go to university, find a good job”
- “hope all researchers succeed for all children need help”
To see the work Telethon Kids Institute are doing on FASD in the Fitzroy Valley, watch this video.
