rangarian music
Local people connected to the place in which they live, builds healthy, vibrant communities.
We all want to live in a community that is healthy, well, has good infrastructure, it's
a great place for your kids to grow up, it's a great place for your parents to live.
We all want to have those great environments to live in, so our work broadly contributes
to that.
Interreach helps to build stronger communities in many ways.
School development programs and the work we do with individuals helps them to define their
own future and shape the places in which they want to live.
Community hubs provide a space for people to come together.
It's putting a real positive place right in the hub, right in the middle of a low socio-economic
area.
It's giving kids opportunities to come and get a feed when they haven't got one, to talk
to a smiling face, to interact with programs.
A high social disadvantage community here, and also an Aboriginal community within Walgreens
to live around here and access the centre on a regular basis, and it's good to break
in those barriers and work with those guys, especially having a centre like this.
The Interreach Community Skills Project has partnered with Wagga Tafe to provide driver
education for people to get their licence.
As Tafe, we need the cooperation of other organisations because we can't do it on our
own, we can't physically get the students to Tafe, and Interreach is an organisation
that can help and also can spread the word about the services that we deliver, the courses
that we run.
Right across the Murray Riverina, Interreach works together with a diverse range of communities
big and small to help determine their particular needs and wants.
In community development we use an assets based community development model where we
look at what exists within a community, what strengths exist, and we work with communities
to draw on those strengths to build a better future.
The asset based community development approach utilises the skills of local residents, the
power of local groups and organisations, and the support of local institutions to build
healthier, happier communities.
Through Interreach, but they were the main instigators to show us where to go and get
the thing up and running.
Initially I started community consultation here through the CWA, the Country Women's
Association.
We drew a meeting with them when we were talking about community desires, a lot of the women
in the community identified the need for a men's shed.
So we really helped with setting up their organisation, so the governance structures
around that helped them get incorporated and then really helped them with the fundraising.
Very much the idea of the community, it was built by the community, for the community
and it will always remain part of the community.
Come down for a cup of coffee and a talk, especially if you're sitting at home, by yourself.
Without the great infrastructure like a community centre that we're sitting here today, there's
no point of contact or no central point from which to have a social centre of social interaction
but also so visiting services can come in and offer their services as well.
And when people have nowhere to go?
That's when you have negative impacts in communities, that's when you have violence,
that's when you have kids looking for drug and alcohol, that's when you have kids trying
to start fights with each other, that's when you have break and nanos, all sorts of things.
Crime rates go up without centres like this.
Much of what we do in terms of our services is about helping people stay well and stay
connected to their community.
So without our services they're far more socially isolated and you see their health outcomes
rapidly decline when people are disconnected and they're not getting the help they need.
Inter-Edge is important because it's a local organisation, it's come from the community,
we live within the communities that we work and we know our communities.
We are from the community, we're not from outside.
With Inter-Edge they seem to employ locals, locals that are on the ground that hear the
needs and concerns of the community.
Inter-Edge is a not-for-profit community based provider of services to regional, rural and
remote communities throughout the Riverina Murray region of New South Wales.
Inter-Edge is committed to building strong supported communities and promoting the values
of leadership, partnerships and social justice.
I believe the future of Australia is going to be defined by strong regional communities
regardless of their size and participating in those communities is central to that.
