By RUSSELL BENNETT
GREATER Dandenong’s ever-expanding multicultural community has started looking outside the square for employment opportunities, with a number gaining valuable hands-on experience at a Gippsland cattle farm over recent weeks.
What began in 2008 as a determination from Vicki Jones to make her farms chemical-free has resulted in her own slice of a unique market and, now, an approach to farming that could revolutionise how the mainstream sector operates.
Aaron Mashano, the CEO of the Dandenong-based Leaders of Tomorrow Careers Training, met Vicki through a client of his.
The pair soon formed a working relationship through the agricultural work experience component of Leaders of Tomorrow.
“We were looking for more like-minded farmers who share our values,” Mr Mashano explained from Ms Jones’s Hallora property, Mountain View Organic Farms.
“When we started chatting I said the next block of my work was work experiences with the multicultural community because I think there’s a missing link. I used to be a farmer.
“I gave Vicki a call and out of 120 farmers I spoke to she was the one who said ‘come down and have a chat’.”
Part of the Leaders of Tomorrow mission is to help provide skills to people who are looking for a way into the workforce.
“There’re 50,000 more immigrants who are coming here who’re being granted work visas but they don’t have the skills or the experience, or the language-literacy barrier gets in the way,” Mr Mashano said.
“A lot of it, we feel and have probably experienced, is just the integration and assimilation component which is where I think even the bigger end of town organisations haven’t got together because they’re all trying to band all these guys and relocate them but if they disconnect from communities it doesn’t work.”
Ms Jones said she had spoken to a farmer from Sale who said there were farmers ready to shut down simply because they couldn’t get any workers.
“That’s what’s stopping them,” she said.
“The guys from Rabobank were saying to me that they had a big meeting and a guy said ‘the markets are there – why are you guys not producing milk?’ and the farmers replied ‘we just can’t get labour’.”
Mr Mashano said the initial target for the group was relief milking, adding “they get a chance to not over-commit into full-time employment.
“It’s permanent part-time if they can and that gets them off Centrelink and gives them a taste of what they could do next.
“This is a pilot work experience project, but more like a taster.
“The team we have now has a very good dynamic – it’s a very good mix, not just culturally but also across gender lines.
“Their English skills are good enough for them to comprehend each other and they kind of know who’s good at what so we have specific teams.
“At the moment we’ve got people from Mauritius, Afghanistan, Cambodia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Australia… it’s a mixed bag.
“Everyone speaks English and it’s workplace English.
“We really are very confident we’ve got a group of work-ready people in an eight-week turnaround.
“We’re not trying to put 100,000 people into employment in the workplace.
“We’ve got an employment agency we’ve been dealing with to get across that cultural bridge but the blessing with this is that we can actually see 10 people who get jobs.”
Mr Mashano said he was very passionate, adding: “We get involved and we’re hands on – we’re not trying to do this from a distance.”
Ms Jones was adamant that they’re onto a winner.
“We don’t know the word ‘can’t’,” she said defiantly.
“There’s no such thing.”
For more information, visit careers.leadersoftomorrowglobal.com.
