Breaking the cycle of disadvantage the main course for MPREC
GENERATIONAL job disadvantage is being addressed in Dubbo and it’s a real case of service with a 5 Star smile.
Murdi Paaki Regional Enterprise Corporation (MPREC) is set to open the Blueridge Café next to their headquarters in the business park.
Acting MPREC CEO Rene Wykes says it’s important to build foundational work and life skills for some of the most disadvantaged members of the community via social enterprises.
“The staff in these businesses are seeking to improve their work skills and, in turn, the lives of themselves and their families,” Wykes said.
“All profits from this business will return to supporting other community members – we think this business model will return great benefits not only to the team members in the café but also to the wider community.
“Giving people the opportunity to enter meaningful employment and gain skills through on-the-job training assists with bringing people out of a cycle of disadvantage and entrenched poverty, improving social outcomes and demonstrating positive career pathways to the community’s young people,” she said.
Heading up the training is former local Max Rabbett who’s returned to Dubbo after six years managing 5 Star hotel restaurants in Canberra and Sydney and a young man who’s pleased he moved away to get top-end skills so he can now bring them back to Dubbo to benefit others.
“I’ve got a strong hospitality background and I want to try and instil that into the staff I’m training,” Max said, pointing out the café is not just about handing out plates of sandwiches.
“All the small aspects, not just the food and beverage side of things, there’s the service side and there are administrative type things, food safety, all these types of things that they can get into as well so a broad spectrum of work, not just sort of waitering and waitressing.
“That’s a really big thing for me, I really do want to be able to train and give the staff the knowledge and background that I’ve learnt from such highcalibre work, and also to get them excited – hospitality is a career that a lot of people think is a beginning to end sort of career, but there’s a very broad range of work in the industry,” he said.
Most exciting of all, he says, is the prospect of creating and cementing daily routines and habits for people who have been long-term unemployed or who have never had a job, oftentimes because there were no readily accessible pathways in the local area.
“Through Murdi Paaki) we’re bringing long-term job seekers and they do the training, specific training and then we bring them into the café here and I train them in things like hospitality operations and then they get trained as well in coming to work and all those types of things,” Max said.
“They work with us for six months and then they can stay or move on as well.
“The pathways that we give here for them as well is not just based on hospitality operations, it’s the whole idea of bringing them back into the workforce and getting them into routines,” he said.
The first group has started training while the café is being set up to open and Max says while some are keen on hospitality, others are interested in fields like retail and construction.
He believes the skills the trainees are being taught are readily transferable to all sorts of occupations.
“Through the café here we really get them working in a team environment and all those sort of small aspects that you generally wouldn’t learn so much say doing work experience,” Max said.
“It’s incredibly challenging but also incredibly rewarding.”
There are six participants in first group with another four arriving during the next few weeks.
Rene Wykes believes the fact Max is so passionate about the industry is a huge plus for the trainees.
“Max will not only provide the necessary training for our clients, but will be a driving force to implement healthy lifestyle choices through a gourmet menu which will be collaborated with the chef,” Wykes said.
“Food and service go hand-in-hand and the Blueridge Café will most definitely be providing a high quality of both of those elements.
“As part of his budget speech treasurer Scott Morrison said that 12 percent of Australian children aged under 15 grow up in jobless families – social enterprises not only create more jobs in our communities, but also put people on the right path for long-term employment, giving them a safe space to learn essential work skills,” she said.
Blueridge Café will also showcase local produce such as Dreamtime Tuka from Wellington’s Herb Smith.