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RINGY'S RAMBLINGS: A wheelie good idea ridden into the ground
ISSUE 190 - 12 Nov 2009
ISSUE 190, November 12, 2009: In the NT, the federal government is spending with all the purpose and enthusiasm of a shickered sailor. In these circumstances GRAHAM RING* ponders the de-funding of an effective but unspectacular $250,000 youth program based in Alice Springs.
The Deadly Treadlies program kicked off in Alice Springs back in January 2003. The idea was to work with young people in Alice and some of the surrounding communities, to give them something interesting and purposeful to do.
Deadly Treadlies is, as the name suggests, about kids fixing and building bicycles.
The beauty of the program is in the elegant simplicity of the concept: give kids the opportunity to do something that they want to do, where they can learn new skills.
During the 12 months to June 2005, the program worked with over 500 young people to build and repair over 400 bikes.
But during the current financial year, Deadly Treadlies will provide assistance to precisely no one.
In a remarkable failure of good sense, the program - which costs all of $250,000 annually - has been de-funded.
The Treadlies troupe has worked with kids at 14 remote communities around Alice Springs including Papunya, Docker River, Kintore and Yuendumu.
In more recent times they have concentrated their activities on Alice Springs and its Town Camps, where they have continued to be a popular attraction.
It's handy for a youngster to know how to mend a puncture, tighten a chain, or fit a new pair of handle bars to their bike.
These are concrete skills. But the kids benefit just as much from all of the other things that happen along the way.
They learn to work with other people, and to share tools and ideas. They learn to take direction.
They learn of the satisfaction that can be gained from seeing a job through to completion.
In short, they develop the kind of qualities that politicians never tire of identifying as being sadly lacking amongst disaffected youth in general, and disaffected Aboriginal youth in particular.
Ramblings is prepared to concede that there's a real danger that kids involved in the Deadly Treadlies program will develop a sense of self-esteem, but we think it's worth the risk.
Young folk with time on their hands and limited resources have a way of getting themselves into mischief.
Giving these kids something to do which makes them feel part of the community, and helps to ensure that adolescent aberrations don't become a lifestyle, is money well spent.
Tristan Ray is a youth worker at the Central Australian Youth Link Up Services (CAYLUS) at Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs.
The mob at CAYLUS can take a large slice of the credit for the fact that petrol sniffing has almost been wiped out in Alice Springs and the surrounding communities.
They know a thing or two about getting kids on the right track here, and Ray is unstinting in his praise for Deadly Treadlies. He says that the success of the program is based on the fact that it builds on the kind of thing that local people want.
"It's a fun developmental activity which provides kids with useful skills, as distinct from the entertainment programs which only engage them in the short term," he told Ramblings last week.
While funding for Deadly Treadlies has dried up, Ray tells us that the federal government has found the money to pay for BMX bike tracks that communities haven't asked for, and will find difficult to maintain out in the bush. Curiouser and curiouser.
It's staggering to contemplate the fact that the federal government is shovelling hundreds of millions of dollars into a federal intervention allegedly designed with the safety of the children in mind, yet Deadly Treadlies has become a casualty of a lack of funding.
This is a simple and effective program that targets some of the young people who are most at risk in the community.
It would be incredible if two tiers of government cannot find $250,000 between them to continue such a worthwhile program.
Ramblings would suggest that this pittance could be diverted from the $672 million SIHIP budget.
We're better at 'riting than 'rithmatic, but we reckon subtracting $250,000 from $672 million will still leave you with enough money to buy fish and chips every Friday night until hell freezes over.
And given the fact that SIHIP doesn't actually build any houses the money will never be missed.
So, in its ever-humble way, Ramblings has some advice for the politicians and bureaucrats who make the decisions about where our money is spent.
Get on yer bikes!
ringy@nit.com.au
*Graham Ring is a fortnightly NIT columnist and writer. He is based in Darwin after stints in Alice Springs and Melbourne.
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