Neville' message 

How good was last week's meeting with Ariel Valent speaking to us about "The Centre". We had 28 attendees including 13 of our 15 members plus our AG Murray Anderson as well as 1 from Southbank RC, 1 from the E Club RC, 2 from Prahran RC, 1 from Bangladesh, 1 from India, 1 from Ghana, 2 from the North Melbourne Good Karmies Facebook Group and 4 other friends of the club/prospective members.

During the Olympics, I did write a few reports picking out a few significant performances well I have to say I am just as impressed with the Paralympics. A lot of the vision you see is quite amazing and the stories are just inspirational. Like in the Olympics one had a link to our club. Swimmer Ahmed Kelly has again amazed people how he can swim up and down a 50m pool with no arms or legs but he has had this determination since a young child when Moira Kelly brought him and Emmanuel out of an orphanage in Iraq. Our club helped Moira arrange and pay for the flights and also helped link her with doctors to treat the boys and they arrived in Melbourne in 1999. At our club's formal black-tie changeover at Flemington Racecourse, Moira bought both the boys to the event where Andrew Georgiou handed over the Presidency reins to me. These young lads somehow moved around the room and helped clear the tables. They were so grateful for the chance Moira had given them and as time has gone on they have clearly made the most of it. Last week Ahmed won his first Paralympic medal, a Silver.

As I mentioned last week we had Ariel Valent speak to us and here is a snippet from Spencer Fowler Steen, Editor of the North West City News.

What is a Neighbourhood House? It’s actually something most people aren’t aware of. Neighborhood Houses started in the early 1970s and there was a group of women. Women who wanted to get away from the kitchen sink and they wanted to create social change and communities that worked for them and to support individual learning. In a lot of suburbs, lots of houses were donated. They got turned into meetings/activities/classrooms. More than 400 across Vic - more Neighbourhood Houses than McDonald's! Neighbourhood Houses Victoria has valued it at $162 million for creating community connections. They’re about connecting people, learning, and fostering a connection to the neighborhood. They say if you’ve been to one NH, then you’ve been to one NH. The community development approach is what unites them all.

History: The Centre goes back to the early days of Neighbourhood Houses, the history goes back more than 40 years. The mission is to address disadvantages. We are governed by a volunteer board. We are all volunteers. We have 80 volunteers across our programs.

The principles are around progression connection and expression. We provide opportunities for people to express themselves through print and through creative endeavors.

Programs A lot of what NH and The Centre does is be a safe, welcoming space. We’re near the library in Errol St. When we open, we open our doors to anyone. We’re often asked what do we actually do. We have education as one of our key, fundamental things. Homework Club – Grades 4 to Year 9. We provide snacks too. Volunteer tutors.

The Workout program, connected to the Judy Lazarus Transition Centre in West Melbourne, is for prisoners to test their reintegration into society. We run this program to help them get ready for the re-entry especially with digital literacy - some of them haven’t been able to use a computer for 10 or 20 years.

Pre-accredited training: Training on essentially anything – digital literacy at the moment, but in the wings, we have call centre training through to horticulture. I’m open to hearing from the community what training they want. It’s designed to get the community ready for work.

Community Development: The North West Melbourne News has been going for 40 years. It’s well known, won an award last year. We have volunteer writers seeking interesting stories on the streets. We have a volunteer editor and graphic designers and delivery people. 7,500 letterboxes across North hand West Melbourne. 4 times a year. September 17 is the next one.

SING NoW! - Community choir, Health and wellbeing program particularly focuses around palates and older adult exercise, and Get Together program and advocacy. Another side to this is advocacy. The housing tower at 33 Alfred St was listed as an exposure site last weekend so we’ve been trying to organize relief packs for kids who haven’t been getting enough stimulation.

Events: Spring Fling – couldn’t run last year and unfortunately, we can’t run it in 2021 either. The Spanish Language Fiesta – half Spanish speakers, half not. And ANZAC Days.

Docklands: We’ve had a pop-up Neighbourhood House in Docklands. Challenge in Docklands: It’s a kind of community that’s been built very quickly over the last 15 years and it’s been built w/o a community in mind. So we’re trying to retrofit it and provide opportunities together. We find a lot of international students. I want to create the Neighbourhood House on the Water so if anyone wants to donate a big boat or help us buy one, that would be welcome.

Upcoming Speakers

With the update to our lockdown, we really are not booking any in-person meetings now until we know what the situation is. That means the meeting we were planning with Shawn Cosgrove has to be postponed to later in the year.

Thursday 2 September 2021 at 7 pm on Zoom 

Zoom id 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84841093769?pwd=b0h6enZkeFlQbDFkTW0vWEVjSWJhUT09

Meeting ID: 848 4109 3769

Passcode: 426980

 

Thursday 9 September 2021 at 7 pm on Zoom 

 

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