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CommunityLink Magazine
National CommunityLink Magazine is a part of National Australia Bank's
CommunityLink program. The magazine attempts to foster the exchange of ideas in community service and volunteering between local community groups.
The National CommunityLink program has been developed to assist
Australian communities, families and volunteer organizations. The national believes it has a responsibility not only to provide high quality banking services, but also to actively work with communities to improve the overall standard of living in Australia.
Volunteering Australia is the major partner in the National
CommunityLink Awards program. The following stories first appeared in National CommunityLink Magazine. They have been have been reproduced with the permission of the National Australia Bank. |
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HEALTH/COMMUNITY
SERVICES
By the Side of the
Dying
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Palliative care volunteers help terminally ill people and their families. But the work needn’t be depressing - for many it brings great joy.
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Since the 1970s there has
been a growth in hospices and palliative care services around
Australia. These organisations are often small compared with
acute care facilities. They rely on volunteers for a whole
range of services - driving patients to and from medical
centres, providing catering and domestic help, and supporting
patients and families emotionally before and after death.
Phil Endersbee, Managing
Director of outdoor clothing company Wilderness Wear, is one
of a “new breed” of hospice volunteer. Until recently he
spent each weekend keeping company with patients, many of them
young men, at the Caritas Christi hospice Kew, Melbourne.
“They’ve
left all the baggage behind; they don’t care anymore whether
the rates or the phone bills are paid, they just want to talk
about the immediate things happening now”, he says. “You
might think you have all the troubles in the world, then you
go there, talk to people who might have young families and
great potential, and you realise that your own problems are
nothing. I’d rather do this now than when I’m retired”.
Most
palliative care volunteer organisations offer 40 to 60 hours
of training in exchange for a 12 - month commitment of four to
five hours a week. The training typically covers understanding
loss and grief, communication skills, self-care and
occupational health and safety. For people who will work
directly with patients, the training deals with symptom
management, health and safety precautions, spirituality and
cultural issues.
CommunityLink
Magazine May 1998, Issue 4, p 8-11
SAFETY/EMERGENCY
SERVICES
The
Life Savers
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Australia’s emergency management volunteers are often the only ones standing between you and harm’s way. Who are these people who risk life and limb to keep their communities safe? |
Australia is a disaster prone
continent. Every year flood, drought, cyclones, storms and
bushfires take lives and wreak economic havoc. Then there are
the man-made incidents like oil spills, chemical spills and
industrial accidents. If you’ve ever been involved in any of
these, chances are the people who saw you safely through were
volunteers.
Faye
Rosher, communications officer with the WA Bush Fire Service,
says an ability to listen is one of the most important skills
a communications officer can have. For ten years she has
provided the link between her mobile base and firefighters at
the front. If people get trapped it’s her voice that talks
them through. “I try to remain very calm”, she says.
“Then there’s that deadly silence as the fire passes over
them. I hold my breath. It’s a wonderful moment when they
speak again!”
A
good memory is an asset too. Rosher keeps records of who is in
the field, where they are, and incidents that occur. As the
operation scales down, she has to make sure that everyone is
out of the fire area. When firefighters come off the ground
those listening skills come in handy again. Some are quite
stressed - they need to talk, to let off steam.
“Each
operation takes a little piece of you”, Rosher says. “And
each has its own rewards. It’s wonderful to walk away
thinking, ‘Gee I helped. I made a difference”. When
she’s not fighting fires, Rosher is a primary school
administrator.
CommunityLink
Magazine February 1998 Issue 3, p 10-11
SPORT
AND RECREATION
Swansong
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It could easily have been towed to Asia and sold for scrap metal, but the decommissioned destroyer HMAS Swan now has a new lease of life in deep waters off Western Australia. Volunteers were crucial in putting it there.
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The project was the dream of members of the Geographe Bay Artificial Reef Society, a volunteer group formed in 1995 to lobby for the relocation of the HMAS Swan as a dive wreck and artificial reef.
Electrical engineering students from Bunbury TAFE college dismantled electric switchboards and components and automotive apprentices removed two large diesel engines. The students also helped with the removal of over 40 tonnes of lead sold for scrap metal. Project manager Geoff Paynter says, "Without those boys, we'd still be working on the ship".
According to volunteer fitter and machinist Danny Williams, there was one essential requirement for those involved in stripping and scuttling the Swan. You had to be "a little bit mad". The work was often dangerous, with the decks made slippery by rain or oil, and one thing that all the volunteers agreed on was that "if you need a spanner, it would be sure to be two decks above you".
Hundreds of volunteers, including former sailors and marine engineers spent countless days on the Swan and feel that to be a dive wreck is a much more gracious ending than "ending up as razor blades from scrap metal".
With the project complete, and coral forming on the Swan, project manager Paynter is satisfied. "It took more time and effort than we imagined but what we got was a world class dive site and potential to put Geographe Bay permanently on the map for local and international divers."
CommunityLink Magazine May 1998 Issue 4 pp5-7
COMMUNITY SERVICE/HEALTH
Lighting the Flame
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Business mentors are helping turn unemployed young people into successful entrepreneurs.
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Australia's youth unemployment rate is shaping up as the big issue.
Some kids are fighting back. If no one will give them a job, they say they'll create their own. But self-employment is a hazardous route for someone with little experience of the cold hard commercial world.
Help is at hand, though, in the form of the Youth Business Initiative (YBI), a scheme which helps young unemployed people get there own businesses up and running. They are also teamed with a volunteer business advisor.
Sydney business consultant Hank Doll got in touch with YBI after reading a newspaper article about it. He'd done volunteer work with young people years ago in his native Holland and had found it rewarding.
One of Hank's three protégés is Dhirendra Adhair, a 22-year-old sound engineer who found that a diploma is no guarantee of work. After 12 months searching for a job - any job he built himself a billiard table and decided to turn his talents to business "I'm not making a fortune, but at least I'm not on the dole", he says. Says Hank, "Dhirendra needed help organising his bookwork and his cash flow."
"I would have struggled a lot harder without Hank's help," Dhirendra concedes. "He makes me think of things I wouldn't have thought of myself.
YBI has an impressive success rate. Two years after their involvement with it seven out of 10 participants are operating businesses. Another two out of 10 are in full-time work.
Most of our mentors come from small or medium sized businesses," says Brian Lenny, YBI's national director. Many have started from small beginnings - they've been that route themselves."
The reward for the mentor is the personal satisfaction of contributing to the young person's transformation from unemployed kid to independent business owner.
"Someone who's been unemployed for a year or two is likely to be depressed and disillusioned, with little understanding about how to present themselves or sell a product," Lenny explains. "Kick starting them is a difficult task. We do it by building up their self-esteem throughout the course. And we match them with a mentor who will have a good understanding of their needs."
It's like dealing with an unlit candle. "We light the flame and watch it turn into a roaring flame.
CommunityLink Magazine 1997 Issue 2 pp 8-9
ARTS/CULTURE/HERITAGE
Kicks and Memories
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The passionate history of Australian Rules football is kept alive by a legion of volunteers.
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The great football clubs of Europe have a long and proud history, Manchester United, perhaps the most famous of England's clubs, was founded in 1872. Its glamorous Spanish cousin, Real Madrid, first took the field in 1902.
But consider this, the Melbourne Football Club was formed in 1858. A year later, Geelong was established, then Richmond. Others followed and the Victorian
Football Association was born in 1877.
Now the noble history of Aussie Rules is being unearthed by dedicated volunteers, supporters of existing AFL clubs, who formed the Australian Heritage Football Group in 1996. They are dedicated to the preservation, research and display of material associated with the clubs in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. They meet several times a year and share not only a love of the game, but also for the breadth and richness of its past.
The group's secretary is Barbara Cullen, who manages Essendon Football Club's Hall of Fame. While it may be an Essendon fan's idea of heaven, there's plenty to fascinate all with no more than a passing interest in the code.
"With the support of the Essendon Board, we tried to reach the families of every past player to ask for any memorabilia they might have had," says Cullen. "The response was overwhelming. They sent boxes of material."
Faced with the task of organising all this matter, Cullen sent out word that she would welcome some help. Her request was answered by 27 volunteers who contribute their time and skills to the Hall of Fame. "We have men and woman from 19-year-old students to Wally, who's 82 and never misses a shift,"
At Hawthorn, Essendon's great rival of the 1980s, a gallery of past glories is constantly being expanded.
A dedicated Hawk supporter, Peter Haby, was one of a group determined to create an area to celebrate the achievements of the club. Compared to cricket, football history is sadly lacking.
But all that is changing. The efforts of the volunteers who form the Australian Football Heritage Group ensure that future generations will not be ignorant of the role Australian football plays in the texture of our society.
CommunityLink Magazine August 1998 Issue 5 pp 8-9
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