The Cave, WA

The Cave on Sheoak Road in Maddington is new facility for The City of Gosnells. So far the programmes and groups using the centre are. Sense of Place alternative schooling programme, Gosnells Young Carers, Work ForThe Dole Multi-Media Programme, Young Mens Programme. The Cave is part of the Maddington Community Hub, which is three old shops restored and occupied by City of Gosnells Youth Services, The Smith Family and YMCA.

Carers W.A have a youth arm called Young Carers W.A who provide respite activities for young people caring for a sibling or parent. in 2005 Carers W.A and the City of Gosnells used the Beanbag centre facilities to produce a short film to promote Young Carers to schools and youth organisations. The short resulted in the formation of a Young Carers group in Gosnells, Throughout W.A there are more young carers in The City of Gosnells than any other council. The group are using the Beanbag Centre as a meeting place and are planning to utilise the facilities further.

The City of Gosnells has a Young Men’s Programme focused on assisting young men in the community through recreation and personal development. The participants on the Young Men’s Programme are made up of local Aboriginal youth and African youth that came to Australia as refugees. The young men participated in the Unlimited Potential programme and used the Beanbag Centre to enter the “Realising Potential Through Team Work” competition. They focused the short film on the basketball team they formed called the “Gozzy Crocs” and a hip hop group they have formed called Diciplez of Hip Hop, they even used one of their own songs they recorded as the sound track. Their entry won and two of the young men are on their way to Melbourne to see the athletics at the Commonwealth Games in VIP seating and staying at the Crown Casino Hotel. This is something they would never have dreamed of achieving at this point in their lives without the Beanbag Centre facilities.

Currently we have a Work For The Dole Programme which has just started at the Beanbag Centre. The focus of the project is to train the unemployed people to use the facilities and programs to produce 3 short films for Not for Profit organisations within the City of Gosnells to promote their services or programmes.

Job search, multi media, short film production, meeting space

One of the people who worked on the Young Carers film has taken up studying in counselling with the dream of being able to counsel and mentor other young carers.

Two people from the Young Men’s Programme have been involved with the organisation for 3 years and are both now about to study Community Services at Tafe and we will be using them as mentors for the next group of young men to come through the Young Men’s Programme.