It’s going real good, the boys are enjoying it.

Tom’s Youth Pathways Program is located in Ngukurr, a community 330 kilometers south

east of Katherine in the Northern Territory. Lying on the banks of the Roper River and

isolated by the wet for much of the year, the community of almost a thousand people,

has learnt to become self-sufficient.

Tom is the Youth Pathways supervisor and his first job each morning is to pick up his team.

Youth Pathways is a local initiative that provides young people with skills, regular

employment and a positive attitude on life.

Bye now.

Peter is one of the program’s success stories.

I used to be fighting, smoking drugs, I used to be sniffing, I used to be breaking and

entering. I finished up all that and stepped up.

Another young man who decided to step up is Eric.

I started liking this job, I started coming to work everyday. You get to use the tools.

I feel like I’m doing something with my life, you know.

Today, Eric, Peter and their team are constructing a new building at the recreational center

under the watchful eye expert builder Adam McKenzie.

They’re a bit harder than those ones because they don’t have much to sit on, you know.

We are gunna be learning about tiling, welding,

This program works because it’s building pride in the community and providing real

skills.

Skills which they can use outside of the community, and they can stand back and see what they

have achieved and what they’ve built.

BUT this is a big shower, this is the big shower. There used to be a back door over

there,used to be, but it’s all changing now and we’re going to make it really change.

And the changes Peter and his Youth Pathways team are making can be seen everywhere.

A building that we’ve built,the airport shelter,there was nothing here and there was

no shade, there was only sun. It’s our legacy you see, and we are really proud of what we

done here and still we have to do more and more, we’re not going to stop.

When I first got here the youth weren’t engaged in anything, they were just seen as

a group of people who didn’t contribute to the community,that were thugs, that walked

around, that didn’t contribute.

And that’s the key to the programs success - valuing the contribution young people make

to community life.

We tried to find a way of engaging them and making them part of the community. The youth

make up 50 per cent nearly 60 per cent of the population of Ngukurr and that’s the

same right across Indigenous communities. So it’s really actually acknowledging that

they do make up a significant part of the community and they need to start being valued

a lot more and a lot more emphasis and resources put into them.

Put them on the side,on the side.

And obviously that had a whole flow on effect on range of things petrol sniffing, break

and enters, anti social behavior and stuff like that.

All this means less work for local police.

A few of them were constantly involved in pretty much every court since I’ve been

here, been involved in court in some matter or another. And um, since the program started

they’ve got direction and are having some positive outcomes and no longer appearing

in our courts and seem to be doing well.

One of the reasons this program works is because elders like Kevin Rogers are right behind

it, offering advice and support.

You learn skills that you wouldn’t have it’ll be yours and nobody can take that

away from you. And you don’t have to work here you can work elsewhere then.

They asked me to talk with them to build up their self-esteem, to be strong and to come

to work and to try and encourage them to be responsible and trustworthy and that sort

of thing, you know that person, that young fella needs to develop himself and his work

ethics. Ah,it’s encouraging for me to work with the boys, building them up as a young

person and they really impress the community, and I’m very proud to be affiliated with

them.

Go up there and just do it, get a job. Come and do training be somebody. That’s what

we wanna be, I wanna be somebody, yeah.

And here being somebody is no different to anywhere else, you need to understand your

roots and heritage.

Western way and our Indigenous ways, if you don’t have an identity you don’t belong.

If I be there I’ll know all this stuff to teach us all respect, that’s where I wanna

be.

We go through many obstacles to get these. Obstacles I think that will stop us from moving

on. I go higher,I want to do this, I want to achieve something, I want to reach my goal,

what I’m looking for.

While Cherry gets the young men thinking right, sport plays a key role in keeping them on

the ball.

Sport and recreation, healthy lifestyle choices and then some other bigger picture stuff about

them understanding governance and leadership and the way that the communities are changing

and how they are an important part of that change.

Rewarding the effort is also important and today the young men are going out bush to

do what they love most.

So this is another component of the Youth Pathways project. Tom the supervisor kind

of assesses how the guys have gone throughout the week if they have turned up, worked hard,

worked well he usually takes them out on an outing either once a week or once a fortnight

to give them a bit of a reward.

There’s nothing better than being part of a winning team based on life long skills and

self esteem, and that’s what the pathways project is building.

I want everybody to be here for the community and to make the community a better place,

better country.