September 17, 2021
TAFE Queensland’s Kingaroy campus invited Kingaroy businesspeople to attend a meet’n’greet recently to raise more awareness about available courses and meet the teachers who deliver them.
The Kingaroy Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s September meet’n’greet attracted a big crowd to the main campus building in Geritz Road.
Hospitality students prepared bento boxes of finger food and served cold drinks.
Guest speakers from the TAFE, South Burnett CTC, the Youth Insearch Foundation and South Burnett Regional Council addressed the crowd.
As well, KCCI president Damien Martoo provided an update about the association’s “hub” project which is being developed in a vacant shop in Kingaroy Street.
The building is being fitted out and asbestos is being removed.
“This is a community project. After we leave in two years, it will remain for the community to use,” Damien said.
- Recently appointed TAFE Queensland Business Development Officer Evalyn Thompson introduced key TAFE teachers and provided an overview of training options available.
“We want to bring TAFE back into your lives,” she told the business owners, inviting them to discuss relevant courses for their industries.
She said the campus was also introducing more “short” courses designed to appeal to different segments of the community.
The first is “Whole-Foods, Plant-Based Cookery” which will be held from 6:00pm to 9:00pm on Thursday, October 14.
The three-hour course, which costs $99, will cover the preparation of three dishes: a breakfast dish, main meal and sweet dish plus condiment recipes.
- Tom Martin, from South Burnett CTC’s youth hostel, explained how CTC teaches independent living skills to the young people staying in the hostel.
“There is not a lot of public housing available,” he said.
“The way out for them to get their own place, is employment.”
He asked the business owners to approach CTC to see how they could work together to support young people.
- Donna Ryan, from the Youth Insearch Foundation, explained the group worked with at-risk young people aged 14-20.
“We can’t change their stories but we can write a different story for their futures,” she said.
She said Insearch had been running a volunteer-based peer-support program but this was not sustainable.
They had decided to move to a “place-based” model with a full-time social worker.
“We need $150,000 a year and need to sustain it for three years at least,” she said.
She suggested that if just 15 businesses agreed to donate $10,000 a year for the next three years the program would be sustainable.
