An Aboriginal-owned and operated company called B18 is helping at-risk young people involved in the youth justice system get back on track.
B18’s Wake Up program uses a combination of bush camps, work experience and vocational education and training to help kids reconnect with culture and country, and develop new work-ready skills.
As qualified tradesmen, the B18 team are also teaching real work skills focused mainly on conservation, land management and construction industries.
The camps are for young people aged between 14 and 17 who are disengaged from school, starting to come into contact with the youth justice system, and who may already have been engaged in formal youth diversion.
B18 is one of many service providers funded by the Northern Territory Government to reduce youth offending and at-risk behaviour.
So far 24 young people have completed youth diversion through B18’s program.
Recently, a few participants of the program have successfully completed their Certificate 1 in Construction through the Housing Industry Association with support from B18 mentors.
Quotes from Minister for Territory Families and Urban Housing, Kate Worden:
“By engaging young people in Youth Camp programs and giving them access to educational opportunities we aim to put young people back on the right path while providing opportunities for their future.
“These Youth Camps provide police and the courts with options to divert young people away from the formal youth justice system.
“Programs like B18 target young people when they are beginning to come to the attention of Police and exhibiting offending behaviours. It does this by helping to build strategies for non-reoffending and providing services to young people that improve their chances of a positive future.”
Quotes from Managing Director of B18 Aidan McGuinness:
“We want to give young people the tools they needed to make better choices and design a healthy, sustainable and confident life before and beyond the age of 18.
“We take young people who have already been in the system and we give them an opportunity, they are good kids who lack opportunities and don’t have the best living environments.”
Northern Territory Government
