Ngulla Community Nursery

Ngulla Water Grants

Born Road born again as enterprising nursery

Project name: Born Road (Ngulla) Community Nursery Project

Lead organisation: Bridging the Gap Inc, WA

‘... a functioning nursery and a curriculum with enterprise learning components built in.'

A broad-based partnership in Kwinana, just south of Perth in Western Australia, is setting up a community plant nursery to give individuals work-based training in horticulture, conservation and land management and an enterprise education in a real-world commercial setting.

Five local organisations have coalesced around twin goals: quality product and service delivery to a new housing development in booming Kwinana, and skills development in young people that will lead to jobs in a region plagued by high unemployment.

Colin Kerr is CEO of Bridging the Gap Inc, lead agency in the development of the Born Road Community Nursery. ‘We've come a long way very quickly,' he says.

‘We started from scratch in September 2005. Now we have a functioning nursery with students and trainees in commencing February 2006, and a TAFE-developed curriculum to provide them with certification in horticulture and land management, with specific enterprise learning components built in.'

The germ and germination of an enterprising idea

The seed of the idea was planted by property developers Peet Limited, whose strategic planning includes a commitment to building social capital in the Kwinana community.

In a joint venture with the WA Government's LandStart (the development arm of the Department of Housing and Works), Peet & Company are developing The Village at Wellard, an innovative mixed-use estate around the Wellard Station on Perth's new Southern Suburbs Railway. The development will contribute to a 35 per cent population increase in the Kwinana district over the next ten years.

With that kind of growth, it wasn't hard to identify a coming surge in demand for native plant stock and other horticultural services.

Nor was it hard to identify a potential site for propagating plant stock - the Medina Aboriginal Cultural Community (MACC) have a 99-year lease on a 10-acre farm site in nearby Born Road that had been a working market garden and nursery in the 1980s. MACC was keen to sub-lease the land, revitalise it as a training facility and encourage local Indigenous youth to participate.

With the Town of Kwinana local government authority on board to facilitate, support and market the project, Bridging the Gap came in to lead the project.

Bridging the Gap has provided its expertise in delivering employment and training services to youth, and particularly disaffected youth. As well as managing the EL21 grant, they have been recruiting youth trainees, setting up a Careers Caravan and coordinating Green Corps teams to prepare the Born Road site.

A customised curriculum delivered on-site

Challenger TAFE is the final piece in the consortium jigsaw. Challenger TAFE has designed a customised curriculum of 17 units that will lead to the Certificate II in Horticulture (Wholesale Nursery) and Certificate II in CALM. The training will take place in a de-mountable classroom on-site.

The course will consist of units in horticulture, land management and construction as well as enterprise learning and entrepreneurial leadership.

‘Private sector and community-based organisations are showing a strong interest’

Trainees and students will be able to apply their curriculum learning in enterprise leadership and horticulture directly to the nursery operation on a day-to-day basis.

The commercial priority is to establish a fully operational plant nursery to grow and maintain plant stock for mass planting of the wetlands/conservation areas and selected public open space in Wellard.

But students will also be encouraged to be enterprising and entrepreneurial by grasping a range of economic and social opportunities. That might include selling wholesale to the public, setting up a technical advice service in gardening and landscaping, sub-leasing unused land at the Born Road site, setting up a shopfront in the main street or growing plants on a contract basis.

The state of play

The Born Road site is now operational. Irrigation and reticulation systems are in place, and 12000 plants have been grown and planted at The Village at Wellard as specified in the contract. Ngulla Community Nursery was officially launched on the 22^nd August 2006 by The Honourable Pat Farmer Parliamentary Undersecretary to the Department of Science and Training with 80 people sharing in a wet but exhilarating day.

Private sector and community-based organisations are showing a strong interest. For example: Bunnings supplied a range of nursery materials for free., Filtrex provided the toilet system at cost; and Kwinana Senior High is interested in linking up for horticulture and enterprise learning opportunities. BHP Billiton are offering funding, material, equipment and volunteer services to assist in the continuing development of the Community Nursery.

Medina Aboriginal Cultural Community's status as a project partner - and the agreed participation of up to four young Indigenous people to develop entrepreneurial skills, confidence and employment potential - has widened acceptance of the project.

Media coverage has aroused strong community interest. The crowning event will be the production by Access31 of a 2 x 25-minute documentary in early 2007, the result of filming over the preceding 12 months in a project initiated by Peet Limited community development arm.

Challenger TAFE has 4 students to fill the first intake for the Born Road Community Nursery. Another two trainees will upgrade their qualifications and take a supervisory role through employment by Bridging the Gap. There is currently 30 school aged students attending the Advantage Program, a programme, which is currently being conducted at Ngulla and involves Workplace Training in the areas of Horticulture, CALM and construction. These students have been recruited from 4 schools within the Rockingham/Kwinana areas. Ten Green Corps participants also completed a Certificate 2 in Conservation and Land Management.

The future for the project and the young people who work on it looks bright, says Colin Kerr. ‘When you put together three things - the coming explosion in Kwinana's population and land development activity, a national skills shortage, and a vibrant community that's really pulling together - the only way for our young people is up.'

More information

Colin Kerr, CEO, Bridging the Gap Rockingham Kwinana (Job Futures)
Ph: (08) 9550 1111
email: colin.kerr@btgrockingham.com.au

This version current at 16 March 2006.