At present we are raising funds to support traineeship roles for Aboriginal youth here at SNAICC. Watch this video about Ashley, a recent trainee at SNAICC who now is a permanent employee with SNAICC.
SNAICC is raising funds for more traineeships and other projects at SNAICC.
TRANSCRIPT
ASHLEY TENNYSON: I’m Ashley, and I’ve been doing a traineeship here at SNAICC. I’ve been here for almost a year now. I worked with Kerry Williams before, and she posted something on Facebook about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth. I messaged her and said “I’m looking to do something in admin. It’s something different, I haven’t done it before.” She told me about this place and the next week I came for an interview. I started as a temp at first and then they convinced me, with everyone else, to do a traineeship and I haven’t looked back since.
It was a bit daunting at first, like “what is it like?” I’ve never worked in an Aboriginal organisation, I’ve always been into one. Then I started working here. Everyone was really nice, and the work that everyone does and the work people really put in got my attention. I was really wary about doing a traineeship, then I was like “what’s to lose?”
I’m more confident now than I was, because you’ve got people believing in you and saying that “you can do this” and “we know you can do this. We wouldn’t give you work if we didn’t think you can do it.” It’s a big confidence boost.
The place is … always friendly. I’ve has Sarah and Sandy mentor me doing this traineeship, and the knowledge they’ve passed on to me has been really great. It’s really given me that confidence to know that I can do more and work harder at it. So that’s what I’ve been doing and it’s going well so far.
I don’t actually feel like I’m in a traineeship. They don’t treat me differently from everyone else. I still get treated the same as everyone else, and I do as much important stuff for helping everyone out in the work that they’re doing.
There’s so much information that I’ve learned just being here. It’s helped at home as well, because we’ve got my nephew and niece that are in care at the moment, so it helps.
Being here, I’ve learned a lot more about the issues that go on within communities and around Australia. Even though you hear things from the community, you know you only get bits and pieces of it. It wasn’t until I came here that I understood a little bit more.
My passion is (and was) to save up money and go on a holiday to America, which I’ve now done. I was there for five weeks, so I got that time off work – which was really good – and I came back. I had a really, really good time. I was saving up for about 18 months to go, and I still had enough money when I came back to start saving up for a care now and get my licence and do many, many more things.
