Learning to break new ground
A SOD turning ceremony in Wellington will make history this week by marking the start of construction on the first purpose-built intergenerational learning centre (ILC) in Australia combining aged car and child day care.
“It will put Wellington on the map,” former vice president of Maranatha House and member of the Maranatha Gunya (house) Intergenerational Committee, Terry Frost, told Dubbo Photo News.
“It’s a bit daunting because we’re starting from scratch. We’ve partnered with Dubbo Regional Council and they’re giving us all the support that we need.
“We’re also partnered with Griffith University which has done a lot of research in this area too.”
In June, Mr Frost attended the 2019 Global Intergenerational Conference in the USA where he found the project was already on the radar.
“When I arrived, they all knew about it. They knew we’d received the grant and they’ve offered all lease of life,” he said.
“It also improves their mobility and perception of life, but it works both ways because kids are uninhibited from the point of view of little four and five-year-olds. They become buddies and pals with these elderly people. There’s no judgement or discrimination.”
Wellington builder Matt Redfern Constructions has won the tender for the project and half the money needed has been granted through a $1.5 million Building Better Regions program fund, with the assistance of Member for Calare Andrew Gee.
“We’ve elected to do the shared campus model which simply means we’re on site, which makes it economically viable because you’re sharing the same resources such as housekeeping, grounds keeping and financial department, all those sorts of things,” he said.
The sod turning is taking place tomorrow (Friday, September 27) in Wellington. STUDENTS from Narromine and Trangie High Schools have attended an invite-only tech solutions seminar in Melbourne called the Telstra Vantage 2019.
The students presented designs to solve problems facing their communities.
Narromine High School students presented ‘Farm Watch’, which is health tracking data for farm animals using the Internet of Things.
Two teams from Trangie High School presentation ‘Happy Patch Packs’ involving vegetable garden packs using sensors connected to an app, and ‘Travel on the Gravel’ a VR learning experience for long bus rides to school.
They then pitched their ideas to a panel of judges including Mayor of Melbourne Sally Capp, and Telstra Enterprise Group executive Mike Ebeid.