Awards For Excellence in   Community Business Partnerships 2007 

NT Medium Business Encouragement Award

Imparja Television “Yamba’s Playtime” with Indigenous communities

“Yamba’s Playtime” is a thirty minute children’s program which is recorded in Alice Springs and shown six days a week. Yamba is a mute, honey-ant costumed character whose show is cohosted by a female presenter.

“Yamba’s Playtime” has been on the air for the past 11 years and is transmitted by satellite to every remote Aboriginal Community in Australia. It encompasses an area of 4.5 million square kilometers and a projected audience of 420,000 people. Imparja is the only commercial television station in the world to be fully owned and operated by Aboriginal stakeholders.

“Yamba’s Playtime” promotes road safety, health and hygiene, literacy and numeracy, water conservation and preservation of the environment. It visits communities to promote these issues and footage taken during these events is later used on the program. The benefits to the business are twofold: the staff of the television show are utilising their skills in many ways to produce programs that are interesting, topical and relevant to its audience. They are very much aware of how influential this program can be and enjoy contributing to the wider indigenous community. In addition, the show has a commercial arm with a website and character-based ‘Yamba’ merchandise that can be purchased online.

Yamba’s Playtime is a venture that has maximised the potential of the medium. It teaches life skills to Indigenous youth within the context of their cultural environments.

NT Large Business Award

The Arnhemland Progress Association (ALPA) with Galiwin’ku Council

Arnhemland Progress Association is one of the largest financially independent Indigenous employers in Australia and the third largest retailer in the Northern Territory. As a not-for-profit organisation, successful retail operations support community activities including traditional ceremonies, educational needs and sporting events. Business management education is provided to member communities. ALPA has five member stores in Arnhemland and eight other communities managed as consultancy stores. ALPA’s mission is to conduct an efficient retail business emphasising customer service, nutrition, staff development, training and education.

The partners, namely the Indigenous councils and the communities, collaborate to identify health and nutrition needs, address the challenges faced in remote Indigenous communities, identify healthy Indigenous foods, form partnerships to drive the mission and allow for land agreements between stores and traditional land owners.

This partnership demonstrates self-determination and the benefits that can come from Indigenous communities ‘owning’ programs to meet their community needs.

Multi-State Medium Business Award

Saatchi & Saatchi with UNIFEM Australia

Saatchi & Saatchi with UNIFEM Australia are working towards providing a positive and effective campaign for the community, spreading the White Ribbon message (eliminating domestic violence) through exceptional media exposure. This has resulted in successfully engaging sectors of society that had previously been inactive regarding this cause.

The goal of the project is to challenge social attitudes by means of a pro bono integrated media campaign that showcases how generating ideas can transform the coverage of the issues and awaken members of the community to work towards the common goal of eliminating violence against women.

The business contributes staff, expertise, intellectual resources and access to high profile media materials. They have also been instrumental in engaging the community organisation in the brainstorming/concept work process. UNIFEM has not only committed financial resources to manage the manufacturing processes of the campaign, they have also developed a business strategy to enable the funding of future activities.

Varied and valuable contributions are made by each partner according to their resources and skill sets.

Multi-state Large Business Award – Joint Winners

The ANZ’s Financial Literacy Partnership incorporating the Brotherhood of St Laurence, The Smith Family, the Benevolent Society, Berry Street Victoria and the Department for Victorian Communities.

Developed by the ANZ in response to research which found that six per cent of Australians are fully or partially excluded from appropriate, low cost, safe financial products and services, Saver Plus is a program designed to help families on lower incomes improve their levels of financial literacy, develop a savings habit and build assets for educational purposes.

The community partners actively collaborated with ANZ in producing the Saver Plus product and they actively advocate for the community. ANZ provide educational workshops to the community and community organisation representatives on using Saver Plus and general financial management. ANZ also facilitates the appointment of staff volunteers to assist the community organisations in a variety of ways.

The benefits to the community partners include improved employee morale, and community advantage and training of staff, which has built capacity to conduct further sessions with the community. The long-term benefit has been the reduction of demand for financial help in the community organisations.

Australian Business Community Network with Granville High and other Schools

The Australian Business Community Network (ABCN) works with a network of schools within areas of high need specifically to improve opportunities for students and schools through mentoring, partnering and support programs. As a result of the partnership, by April 2007 23 companies were working with 40 schools in disadvantaged areas in South West Sydney and Perth involving over 800 students, 100 teachers and over 400 company volunteers. The six core programs are: Partners in Learning; Growing Opportunities; SPARK, Reading and Literacy Support Pilot Program; InterAcT Arts Experience Program; Workplace Taster Program.

The contributions made by each partner are significant and include: over 4000 hours of staff time, funding, skills sharing, training and resource commitments; material design and business planning resources and tools.

There are clear benefits to each partner across the numerous partnership programs including shared training, increased understanding of needs and issues, and measurable improvements including parents noticing improvements in their child’s goal setting, attitudes and behaviors. Additionally, business reported a change in attitude and perception, as well as increasing their skills.

Overall there are several positive long term outcomes, including increased job opportunities, increased appreciation of vocational values and increased school retention rates.

This is an excellent partnership that has a broad number of programs, approaches and goals which are all aimed at achieving higher school retention rates, increased literacy and ultimately higher employment rates.

Multi-state Large Business Encouragement Award

Vodafone Australian Foundation Pty Ltd with Barnados Australia and Mission Australia and Father Chris Riley’s Youth off the Street

This partnership aims to address the isolation that young homeless people experience by creating an open line of communication between young people and community services. The program entitled ‘Young People Connected’ (YPC) uses customised mobile telephone technology. The telephones offer freecall access for crisis support. Access to family or other support services is also improved, as well as a reduction in case worker organisation time, as the mobiles facilitate automated reminders for appointments, medications and social events.

In setting up this program the community organisations were consulted and were instrumental in its development. There are also volunteering opportunities in various forms for Vodafone staff.

The benefits to the community organisations and the youth they support have been significant and include improved service provision, increased contact with clients, additional funding and volunteer support. Thirteen services are now involved in the program, 165 youths have been assisted in the last two years as a direct result of this program and trust has been built with clients. In general it has made day-to-day tasks easier.

The ultimate outcome of the YPC program is a reduced level of crisis episodes for young people and improved efficiency and effectiveness of the community services involved. This program demonstrates how business and community organisations can come together to work towards the same goal and use their own skills to their full capacity.

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