SVA currently supports nine outstanding venture partners who are helping to improve education outcomes and increase employment participation in disadvantaged communities across Australia.
Meet each of the ventures below and learn more about their work.
Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME)
Jack Manning Bancroft, Founder & CEO
Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) is an Indigenous Corporation and a non-profit charity that uses a unique style of structured education mentoring to link university students in a one-on-one relationship with high school Indigenous students. AIME’s objectives are to increase Year 10, Year 12 and university admission rates for all Indigenous Australian students who participate in the program.
AIME seeks to give every Indigenous high school student the opportunity to have a fair go at continuing education and going to university.
Beacon FoundationScott Harris, CEO
The Beacon Foundation (Beacon) aims to influence the attitudes and culture of Australians so that each young person can develop an independent desire to achieve personal success for themselves and their community. The Beacon model has a well defined, measurable ‘whole of community’ intervention program which addresses employment pathways and school-to-work transitions for young people.
Beacon works directly with students in the school environment to either stay in school or to help the students develop the skills and confidence needed to choose a positive pathway to employment, further education or training of their choice.
Big Picture Education AustraliaVivienne White, CEO
Big Picture Education Australia (BPEA) aims to stimulate vital changes in Australian education by generating and sustaining innovative, personalised schools that work in partnership with their greater communities.
The key to achievement in a Big Picture school lies in fostering students’ individual interests, encouraging their active participation in the learning process, and developing their ability to apply knowledge and skills to real life experience and challenges.
BPEA designs break-through public schools, researches and replicates new designs for education, trains educators to serve as leaders in their schools and communities, and actively engages the public as participants and decision makers in the education of young people. BPEA’s philosophy is grounded in educating ‘one student at a time’, promoting and creating personalised education programs that are unique for each student.
Fair BusinessAlex Shead, Founder and CEO
Fair Business exists to provide jobs with real pay for the long-term unemployed or those experiencing significant barriers to employment.
Fair Business addresses long-term unemployment with a unique business model. It buys and grows existing businesses and proactively recruits the long-term unemployed into positions within these businesses, ensuring they receive wraparound support to help them successfully rejoin the workplace. Fair Business also actively manages these businesses to ensure their work environments are integrated and supportive.
GanbinaAdrian Appo OAM, Executive Officer
Ganbina aims to improve the economic and social well-being of Indigenous people in the Goulburn Valley (and across Australia via Partnership with Indigenous communities) through programs and partnerships focused on developing individuals to reach their full potential.
Through a suite of programs, Ganbina works with young Indigenous people on work readiness, vocational development, careers education and the provision of scholarships. Ganbina has a proven track record of linking education, work experience and employment as a pathway for economic opportunity and personal significance for Indigenous Australians.
North Queensland Green Solutions (NQGS)Gene Geedrick, CEO
North Queensland Green Solutions (NQGS) is a new community recycling venture, operating near the Herveys Range landfill on the outskirts of Townsville. NQGS serves as an innovative solution to the pressing issue of landfill while at the same time addressing rising unemployment especially for the disadvantaged members of the community. Providing a program to ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’, NQGS diverts domestic waste before entering the landfill and sells reusable items to the public, while at the same time creating jobs and providing training in tip recycling and in the tip shop for those who experience barriers to employment. Jobseekers include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, people with disability, those with mental health issues, the long-term unemployed and vulnerable young people.
Employees are trained in a variety of skills including customer service at the tip shop, repairs and maintenance of equipment that has been salvaged and sorting of equipment and metals for recycling, providing ongoing employment or pathways to alternative employment.
NQGS was established as a subsidiary of North Queensland Competitive Employment Service (NQCES) located in Townsville. NQCES was established in 1989 as a competitive employment service to support people with a disability into open employment.
STREAT Rebecca Scott, CEO
STREAT is a social enterprise providing a supported pathway to employment for homeless and disadvantaged youth. Its innovative model uses food and coffee carts to take youths off the street, providing them with traineeships that help them develop work and life skills.
STREAT provides a tailored, supported pathway from the street to a sustainable livelihood, for youths aged 16-25. Trainees selected for the six month program receive paid work experience and training to achieve certificate II in hospitality through the William Angliss Institute. Holistic support helps them deal with challenges like drug and alcohol dependency, mental illness and legal issues. Assistance in finding employment beyond the program is also provided.
Stronger Smarter InstituteDr Chris Sarra, Executive Director
The Stronger Smarter Institute focuses on changing the tide of low expectations for Indigenous and disadvantaged children across Australia. The Institute has committed to do this by arming school and community leaders with the belief and capacity to transform their own schools with the Stronger Smarter philosophy.
School and community leaders engage with the Stronger Smarter Leadership Program which is designed to challenge and support leadership at all levels of education to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
www.strongersmarter.qut.edu.au
Teach for Australia
Melodie Potts Rosevear, CEO
Teach For Australia is an ambitious social enterprise working to confront educational disadvantage in Australia. Our vision is of an Australia where all children, regardless of background or circumstance, have excellent educational opportunities.
At the heart of our vision is our belief in teaching as leadership, and in the power of exceptional teachers to transform the lives of their students and shape their educational destiny.
To this end, Teach For Australia is attracting some of our country’s most outstanding young individuals – passionate and determined leaders of change who represent all disciplines and career interests – and empowering them to pursue teaching as part of their career journey.
Over time, Teach For Australia is building a lifelong movement of leaders, both in the classroom and beyond, who are passionate, competent, socially aware, and who will remain connected with the mission of confronting educational disadvantage in Australia.
The Song Room
Caroline Aebersold, CEO
The Song Room is a national non-profit organisation that provides free, tailored, long-term music and arts-based programs for children in disadvantaged and high need communities.
The Song Room’s vision is that all Australian children have the opportunity to participate in music and the arts to enhance their education, personal development and community involvement. Programs are based on research and have been demonstrated to improve educational and social outcomes and to help schools sustain their own music and arts programs.