Sunshine Community Mentoring program

Students from Sunshine’s Harvester Primary School are soon to have an ‘Investigation & Discovery Learning Centre’ thanks to the combined effort of Sunshine Plaza Centre Management, Harvester PS, Sunshine Secondary College, YouthNow and volunteer mentors. The centre will be used for language development and learning, and it will be of particular value for refugee and socially disadvantaged children of which Sunshine Harvest PS has more than its fair share.

The building of the centre will form the focus of a mentoring program lead by YouthNow’s Bill O’Connor, who ran a successful mentoring program for secondary schools in 2009. Sunshine Plaza Centre Managment has provided funds to get the project started and VCAL students from Sunshine Secondary College  will build the facility under the guidance of their teachers and volunteer mentors. One of the teachers is a former engineer and the mentors have years of experience in the trades area.

The merging of three schools in Sunshine has created Harvester Primary School which has an enrolment of a little over 400 students and 70% of these children have English as a second language. The school has been identified as the third most deprived school in the Western Metropolitan Region.

Claire Taylor, Early Years Department Leader at the school, reports that this deprivation manifests itself in many children missing out on basic necessities. One of these is the experience of playing with a variety of toys: an activity that promotes investigation through play and language development.  Claire reports that “language and communication skills taught in the Learning Centre would focus on: What, Where and Who, questioning, listening to and giving instructions, interacting with peers, taking turns and having fun”.

The students from Sunshine Secondary College who will build the centre are all enrolled in VET courses as part of their VCAL studies. Like Harvester Primary the College serves a strongly multicultural community with approximately 38% of students from non-English speaking backgrounds. As well as allowing these students to extend their hands on skills this program also gives them the opportunity to contribute to their community and take pride in their achievements.

The idea for this mentoring activity came from YouthNow’s Bill O’Connor and interest was quickly expressed by Harvester PS Principal Alan Dash. The final gap in their plan to get things started was filled by Sunshine Plaza Centre Management. In a ceremony, on Wednesday August 18, Sunshine Plaza Centre Manager Glen Jones presented a cheque for $3000 to YouthNow to begin the program. “We congratulate YouthNow on the initiative and look forward to seeing the centre in action and the children receiving the assistance they require.” Mr. Jones said.