Tirkandi Inaburra has been forced to swing around to delivering online classes as lockdown impacts NSW, with the cultural centre having to send their young people back home and adjust the support services they can offer.
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Tirkandi Inaburra works hard on building the cultural identity, self-esteem and resilience of young Aboriginal men in the Wiradjuri area. They offer cultural courses for young Aboriginal people, but also offer support services for the wider community.
CEO Matt Watts said that while moving to a virtual program had been challenging, they were well-equipped with the lessons they'd learned from last year.
"We've had to change our approach, the programs we offer ... From the Saturday and Sunday that it was announced, we had to send our young fellas back to their homes but since that time, we run a suite of programs virtually to support them," he said.
"We were lucky that a similar thing happened last year, where we had to deliver what we could online. We learnt a lesson from that one so we had a bit of a contingency plan in place."
The centre was determined not to let their resources go to waste when they sent the boys home, and set to work putting together boxes of food and sanitary supplies to send to those in need. They also put together a box of over 200 bottles of hand sanitiser, donating them to Wilcannia Central School.
On the online front, Tirkandi has started offering didgeridoo lessons through facebook live, and putting more focus on individual support.
We just want to make sure people know we're still here, they can contact us whenever
- Matt Watts, CEO of Tirkandi Inaburra
Mr Watts added "We help some of them with their schoolwork, we put out a few things on our site. We're doing assistance for families to complete application forms they might be struggling with."
"We're now doing a bit of a call out that if people are feeling a bit lonely or blue, they can give us a call. That's going pretty well, especially some of the older generation call and have a bit of a yarn with us."
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He explained added that with the unexpected success of some of the virtual programs, they had been discussing continuing them in some capacity.
"The young fellas are definitely missing out on social interaction and some of that culturally specific engagement, so we're filling that space... We've definitely had some meetings amongst ourselves that with the response we're getting that there are some we'll want to keep delivering."
Mr Watts was quick to compliment the staff at the centre as well, for their flexibility and supportiveness in delivering the new programs.
"We just want to make sure that people know we're still here, they can contact us whenever and hopefully, it'll be back to business as usual sooner rather than later."
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