Fishing through sliding doors
AT 28, Damian Beveridge is counting his lucky stars that he got involved with the River Repair Bus project. His efforts on the bus have been rewarded with a fulltime job at Indigenous Concepts and Networking’s forestry nursery.
He had no idea of the massive change his life would take when he first entered the sliding door on the bus.
“I started with the Work-forthe-dole. I’d had a bit of previous experience planting trees up in Queensland for the forestry and it all sort of fell into place,” Damian said.
“The River Repair Bus is a great idea, it gets people out of the house, it gets people on the dole out of the house and out and about, on country and learning about new things.
“It’s changed my life. I’m out here working and I enjoy working, I enjoy being in the sun, I don’t like being inside,” he said.
Robert Ryan, also 28, is walking tall after getting a similar job straight off the River Repair Bus.
“The bus was good. It was good doing the planting and to meet new people,” Robert said.
“It’s really... been a turnaround for my life.
“To come from nothing to end up here with a job is good – I think the other guys on the bus are looking at what I’ve done,” he said.
Rob Riley runs the nursery as a for-profit business but much of the proceeds go straight back into community programs he personally funds.
He says these are the sorts of opportunities that are all around us, we just have to work together and think smarter.
“The River Repair Bus hasn’t exceeded my expectations because we knew how good it could be. We did Work-for-the-dole (WFD) programs in the early days and we had some of the best results that had ever been seen and then the federal government in their wisdom decided that WFD programs could no longer be done by for-profit businesses,” Rob said.
“So we were more than happy when the Inland Waterway guys came on board and said they wanted to regenerate the river because we know that’s where you can have a social impact, it can work hand in hand business-wise.
“You only have to look at this program. They’ve planted maybe $50,000 worth of plants in the last 12 months, they’ve done 70 or 80 loads of rubbish which is normally the job of council so not only have council not had to pay wages for their staff to do this job, but they’ve also got an economic benefit from that and we as a nursery have sold the plants to the River Repair Bus,” he said.
The profit from those plant sales has given ICAN the capacity to pour more resources into its self-funded school programs.
“And to follow that up, we’ve just formed a link with council where we’re going to take over their bush medicinal garden so that’ll also benefit our young schoolkids who’ll have ownership of that garden,” Rob said.
River Repair Bus coordinator David Harris has become a huge fan of all these unintended, and positive, outcomes.
Like others on the hard-working Inland Waterways’ committee, he’s been astounded at the social good that’s come directly from a few fishing mates trying to improve the health of the Macquarie River.
“It’s fantastic. When we first started out it was mainly about the trees and we were pretty conscious about getting the trees in but since it’s been operating now you can see the cultural and social outcomes other than the purely environmental ones,” David said.
“These guys have got new lives, you know, obviously things are looking good for them so let’s hope some of the other guys on the bus could end up following the same path.”
If a small bunch of Dubbo fishing mates can generate these outcomes, imagine if all levels of government actually worked together – what we could achieve for the people of Australia would be beyond amazing.