The organisation was formed in 2006 for the public charitable purpose of providing relief for disadvantaged people suffering from poverty and injustice as a result of unemployment, disrupted education, drug and alcohol abuse, excessive gambling, crime, breakdown in relationships and other significant life issues.

EQUBED has a successful track record of delivering innovative employment and training initiatives.

The fact is, however, we need new ways to engaged with our disadvantaged youth.

Traditional responses are not working. Truancy is a massive problem and students are continuing to leave school early – in droves. Youth unemployment is at a 20-year high in spite of skill shortages and an aging workforce. The problem is now so stubborn and widespread that we need to pioneer some new and innovative ways to break the cycle of disengagement and disadvantage.

I invite you to learn more about our work.

Sincerely,

Rev. David Peake OAM

P.S.:  Please see below the text of our 2013 Annual Report (copy of original text with awesome graphics available upon request):

 

E QUBED

POSTCODE 3047

                       

 

Engagement, Education, Entrepreneurship

 

GIVING A ‘HAND UP’ NOT A ‘HAND OUT’

 

ANNUAL REPORT 2013

 

 

A MEMBER OF THE ANGLICARE NATIONAL NETWORK

 

A SOCIAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE OF THE BROADMEADOWS/DALLAS ANGLICAN PARISH

 

OUR VISION

Justice and Opportunity for disengaged young people

OUR MISSION

To provide innovative learning and earning solutions to empower young people to

break the cycle of disadvantage and social exclusion.

 

OUR VALUES

Justice [the goal]

Integrity and Responsive [the organisation]

Innovative [the model]

Empowerment [the outcome]

OUR KEY SUPPORTERS

Jack Brockhoff Foundation

The Newsboys Foundation

R E Ross Trust

Potter Foundation

Cooper’s Brewery Foundation Inc Trust

James N Kirby Foundation

OUR PROGRAM PARTNERS

Anglicare Australia -  [ Work Ventures Australia]

Hume Whittlesea Local Learning and Employment Network

Hume Global Learning Village

NMIT

The MALPA Project

Victoria University/ AMES

Wise Employment

OUR PEOPLE

The Founder, CEO Reverend David Peake, OAM

 

David is the CEO of E Qubed which creates education al and employment pathways for disengaged youth using social enterprise as a key model. He brings over 30 years of experience working with disadvantaged and disengaged Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people in communities including Fitzroy, West Heidelberg, Braybrook and Broadmeadows. He has been, variously, a probation officer, a youth liaison officer, counsellor, football coach, hospital chaplain, street worker for the homeless, a drug and alcohol worker, trauma consultant, counselling co-coordinator, grief consultant, family counsellor and industrial chaplain, not to mention an Anglican parish priest in some of Melbourne’s most disadvantaged areas.

As an industrial chaplain David provided trauma counselling after the Hoddle Street shooting, the Queen Street shooting, the explosion and fire at the Altona Petrochemical Company and at the Russell Street bombing. He was a Trauma Management Consultant to the Country Fire Authority and was awarded an Order of Australia medal for his community work with the disadvantaged.

David is a Fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs.

 

THE EQUBED BOARD – CHAIRMAN: STUART MCGREGOR

Educated at Melbourne University and the London School of Business Administration, Stuart McGregor has enjoyed a distinguished career in commerce and as an advisor to governments. Having successfully established his own export business he is also engaged in a range of commercial activities, including business directorships together with a number of private and controlled investments and consultancies.

 

DEPUTY CHAIR: KEN THOMPSON

Ken Thompson has a strong commitment to developing school-community connections and coordination of community resources for life-long learning. He maintains a strong commitment to the development of schooling, with an emphasis on developing the entire community towards improved learning for all. Ken was elected as foundation Chairman of the Hume Global Learning Village Committee in 2004, a position he currently holds.

BOARD:

Andrew Bunting [Andrew holds a Doctorate in Education from The University of Melbourne and is a former teacher and university lecturer].

Ken Davis [Clifton Group – Public Relations]

David Herbert:  Risk Management Consultant

Gary Jungwirth [Gary is the VLGA's Human Rights Policy & Projects Officer, and the Timor-Leste Project Coordinator; former Mayor City of Hume – 2 terms]

Barbara McMahon [Public Officer and Honorary Treasurer]

David Redfearn [former Mayor, City of Darebin]

Rae Wilson [ General Manager Professional Development Member Services | CPA Australia

 

ADVISORS (HONORARY):

John Bourne [Bourne and Weir Accountants]

Katharina Dimtscheff [Lawyer]

 

 

Report -CEO and Chairman

 

Every day I am confronted by another story of human misery. A young person, the family bread-winner, has lost his job – downsizing, they said. What is that to a young man trying his best to support his mother and three siblings? The frail man, too, I met crossing the car park – waiting to pick up a food parcel – 2 bags of food that I probably wouldn’t eat! Oh, yes, we try hard to provide a reasonable package –‘what wont fatten will fill’, my mother used to say to us at table when I was a youngster. Then there’s our middle aged addict – he and his wife look after their children as best as they can – he shoplifts to support his habit- he gets caught – dries out for a time then the cycle of addiction begins again. What of those children? What goes through their tiny minds seeing a father stooped, slurring and sweaty?

 

 

This community is filled with stories of brokenness and disappointment. Hopelessness abounds, in some instances, across three generations. New stories fill the local corridors from new arrivals – refugees and asylum seekers – faces pallid, filled with anxiety and fear and desperation. One family, more than 70% of its number, suffer a mental illness of sorts – compounded by drug abuse and adolescent pregnancy!

We try to make a difference! Our hearts are broken – we continue to seek for that elusive dollar to change the circumstance of more than a handful; alas, the well is getter deeper and drier. We were the lucky country once but now it seems lucky for only a few! Our balance sheet represents the plight of most agencies. We are all trying to do more with less – futile it might be, but we will not give up! We will fight for the helpless and for those beset by the injustices of a system which is consistently letting them down.  This is my prayer for them – Spirit of Justice break open the hearts of those whose hearts have dried up and/ or closed up. Give us all the courage to never give up or give in – help us, we pray, to continue to give a hand up!!

Poor Ones,

Please take the bread. It is yours.

The house with running water belongs to you.

A plot of land,  a dignified job – all yours.

Forgive me for offering it.

Charity is not substitute for justice but your children are hungry now.

Spirit of Justice, break open our hearts.

Break them wide open

Let anger pour through

like strong winds cleaning us of complacency,

Let courage pour through

like spring storms flooding out fear.

Let zeal pour through

like blazing summer sun, filling us with passion.

Force of Justice, grant me anger at what is,

courage to do what must be done,

passion to break down the walls of injustice

and build a land flowing  with milk and honey

for God’s beloved, God’s special love, God’s Poor Ones.

Spirit of Justice, break open our hearts.

By Mary Lou Kownacki

 

Stuart McGregor Chairman                 Rev David Peake OAM : CEO

 

 

REVIVE: [Jack Brockhoff Foundation; Newsboys Foundation; Coopers Brewery Foundation Inc Trust; Potter Foundation; Bank of Melbourne}

1. A local furniture finisher provided the opportunities for our young people to rebuild and re-spray furniture retrieved from the hospitality sector. We will continue to build on this relationship by seeking commercial  spraying opportunities to help us grow our social business.

2. We plan to move our operations into a large warehouse in 2014 where we will develop a local hub of learning and earning options for disengaged and disabled young people from Hume. We are also working to develop our ‘hands on learning’ model for Refugee and Asylum seekers in a donated space in Broadmeadows. Revive and an innovative recycling project [Reversabox] will come together with a series of other hands on learning options to build a creative learning hub for our city.

3. E Qubed has been invited to partner with WorkVentures Sydney .They work in the Social Business space in Tullamarine in Melbourne and Mascot in Sydney.

4. We were donated Ecclesiastical furnishings which were refurbished and are now utilized in our Church’s worship space.

5. Our connection with the hospitality sector has encouraged us to explore the development of a commercial kitchen space in our present facilities [ enhancing our food security and community garden projects]

The Project introduced 8 disengaged young people from the City of Hume [Broadmeadows] to new learning and earning options.  It has given them a great understanding of the industry, newly developed skill sets and a renewed confidence to continue their personal growth and development. The Project was introduced to a broad range of industries: kitchen renovators; hospitality and catering sector; major shopping centre [shop fittings]; commercial furniture businesses [sanding, staining and polishing imported chairs /tables] – all have committed to provide the raw material for the Social Enterprise2014ff

Furniture builders and restorers shared their expertise with our young people over the period of the program.

 

THE SANCTUARY PROJECT: [RE ROSS TRUST]

The ‘Sanctuary’ provided quality play opportunities for children from at risk environments. Opportunities to foster children’s language development, develop motor skills, expose children to sensory experiences and enhance social skills were provided.  It also provided families with opportunities to establish friendships and long-term social support structures and develop parenting skills, capacity and confidence.

We delivered a parent education and awareness campaign regarding literacy and reading to children and encouraged and supported them in their role as the child’s first teacher. ‘Scholastica’ provided us with a beautiful array of children’s books which became our reading texts for the year.

12 mothers and their child/children from a variety of ethnic groups attended the project. The colourful story books were our ‘texts’ – even though the major goal of the project was to encourage parents to read to their children its secondary benefit was to assist these parents to improve their own reading capacity. We were also donated a cubby house and sand pit to encourage children’s play.

 

 

Executive Summary Outline:  EQUBED secured the in-principle agreement of Symbion to deliver a targeted youth employment project that trained and then placed 30 disadvantaged youth* into employment with Symbion & related business entities (including business partners and suppliers) over a 12 month period commencing February, 2013 [now extended to September 2014]. The employment project included a pre-employment training program, employment placement, case-management, and post-placement support. The aim was to engage young people in work, and to help them to develop skills for work and life.

The ECHO-30 program was a two-week training program which used a project-based action learning model. The program comprised a mixture of classroom & community-based activities as follows:

 

As at December 2 2013, 6 warehouse ; 5 retail and 1 IT positions were filled. The program is being revisited in February this year.

 

COMPASS ARTS DOWN-UNDER – INSIDE OUT GLOBAL and

E QUBED

This organisation has overseas experience working with disengaged youth. Their work is based upon the research which indicates that Story Telling and Film Making have an incredible capacity to engage and excite. The power of telling their own story, through film, and listening and observing, the stories of others, is both healing and celebration.

Victoria University teachers worked with Year 6 children from Springside P-9 College in Caroline Springs to build resilience by helping them tell stories on film. The films may not have had the glamour of a Hollywood blockbuster but the effect on the students was perhaps much bigger.

VU’s third year education students worked alongside to explore issues the children came up with themselves – such as bullying, law-breaking and family conflict.

The children scripted, acted in, and filmed their movies over a one-week workshop on a journey of creative effort and teambuilding. The project was conducted in partnership with Inside Out Australia Foundation, a non-profit organisation for young people at risk set up in 2012.

Ligia Pelosi, a lecturer in the College of Education, said the project was valuable for both the school children and the pre-service teachers who participated as part of a Bachelor of Education unit entitled Imagination, Creativity and Design.

“The idea is to build up skills of resilience and confidence in preventative arts-based programs that give children the ability to make good choice throughout their life, rather than deal with the mopping up afterwards,” she said.

Before beginning their films, the children identified their own personal character strengths such as curiosity, kindness or humour, and used these to problem-solve.

The pre-service teachers, for their part, not only offered guidance and acted as mentors, but also acquired skills they could use in their own future teaching.

 

THE BUTCHER’S HOOK CLOTHING COMPANY:

15 volunteers [including work experience students and clients on the Work for the Dole Project] have continued to grow the local business and given the local community an opportunity to purchase inexpensive clothing  and bits of treasure. With the advent of a local manager the shop has moved from a break even position last year into a marginally plus position in 2013. April has added a level of energy and enthusiasm to the store and has captured the hearts of the volunteer team.

In 2011 we opened a second shop in West Heidelberg [KOOLE-SE] –‘Kids out of Learning / Earning – Social Enterprise. This shop has better quality goods and sells to a very different market than the Broadmeadows store. There is now a great rapport between both stores with stock not moving in one store being sent to the other. KOOLE engages with the local Somali Community and now carries African clothing and artifacts which we sell on commission for that community. 12 Volunteers continue to oversee these services.

EMERGENCY FOOD BANK – this program has grown substantially across this funding period. Our 8 volunteers provided over 130 food hampers per week. These numbers mean that we are providing food for over 320 local residents per week. We have also extended our Community Garden Project so that we can include freshly grown vegetables as an option. We will be working more closely with Second Bite and Agesture in 2014 to expand the fruit and vegetable varieties on offer.

HEALTHY CHOICES – MAKING THE MOST OF

This program will provide participants with a disability, support and information to assist in key areas of aging well, social and economic well-being and social inclusion to assist with positive health and lifestyle choices to achieve emotional, social and physical wellness.

E QUBED [with WORK VENTURES and ENABLE] are planning a Social Enterprise Hub development in the City of Hume. This Hub will be a shared Work and Learning Centre. It will develop sustainable industries [income] and create further employment pathways [for our client base]. The Hub will tackle key social policy issues including the Social Inclusion Agenda, welfare to work, national mental health and disability employment strategy, skilling Australia’s workforce, innovation and social procurement/ social enterprise development.

The relationship between learning and working at the Social Enterprise Hub together with the Health Education initiatives will provide the complete framework for these outcomes to be achieved. Wellbeing is an important end in itself. It also has many benefits and contributes to other important ends. Establish a research model to collect the following: are our people more:• Sociable • Generous Creative • Active • Tolerant • Healthy• Altruistic • Economically productive

GROWING OUR BUSINESS VIA COLLABORATION

2013 has been an important year for collaboration. At an Anglicare CEO conference in 2012 I met Arsenio Alegre, CEO of Work Ventures Sydney. We met a number of times after that and recognised that we shared very similar values expressed very differently. We felt that much was to be gained by bringing our very different skills to both organisations. This was formalised by their Board in 2013 and has become a model for operational thinking across the Anglicare network.

Closer to home, the manager of Economic Development, City of Hume, George Osborne introduced Julie McKay, a woman passionate about the disability sector and social enterprise development as a means of creative, empowering service delivery, to me. Our professional relationship now includes closer liaison on funding opportunities; program /project planning and a shared enthusiasm for the Social Enterprise space. Julie is Founder and Managing Director of Enable Social Enterprises.

WORK VENTURES [ a member of the National Anglicare Network]works with people at risk of social and economic exclusion who are seeking to improve their lives. They aim to improve the employability of the people they work with, by providing the skills, attitudes, behaviours and resources that result in work experience, traineeships and apprenticeships, volunteering, mentoring, or other community contributions, self-employment and permanent employment.

ENABLE SOCIAL ENTERPRISES is an innovative not for profit founded in August 2013 in the northern suburbs of Melbourne on a mission to tackle social exclusion and improve local economic participation.  They provide opportunities to access jobs and training for local community through their commercial operations.

Their work and learning environment is both supportive and contemporary, designed to meet the needs of people of all abilities.

Enable will engage with E-Qubed to further their genuine collaborative partnership.  Specifically, Enable will provide specialized advice to inform the design and implementation of the Garden to Table project as well as pro bono support as a member of the overall project steering committee.

 

The YOUNG DOCTORS program was designed to respond to the deteriorating health status of aboriginal children in remote Central Australia. The project has evolved to include aboriginal children across rural and urban communities. It involves elders and community workers training children both in western hygiene and in traditional health. This innovative response promotes health, creates employment and strengthens families and communities. The inaugural planning meeting with Local Elders and City of Hume officers is to be held in January 2014 in Broadmeadows. E QUBED will be overseeing the program on behalf of MALPA.

FROM GARDEN TO TABLE:

Our community garden aims to give local residents the opportunity to access high quality, nutritious, fresh fruit and vegetables.  Extending this project to include a commercial training kitchen aims to alleviate hunger/ improve food security in Broadmeadows /Dallas by soliciting, collecting, growing, harvesting and packaging food for distribution through our network and that of partner service agencies and programs that serve our target population groups. The Community Kitchen will be attached to the Community Garden to assist the Emergency Food clientele [150 per week] and   build a sense of community around food. Community Kitchens are based around participation and provide opportunities for people to cook fresh and nutritious meals together. We are presently seeking funding for this project.

 

DIRECTORSHIPS

 

AUDACIOUS DREAMING INCORPORATED

Audacious dreams have three things in common, they effect change, they have impact and they make a difference. Our dream is to re-ignite global awareness of HIV; to prevent more people from becoming infected by this debilitating disease.

AUSTRALIAN SHAKESPEARE COMPANY

The Australian Shakespeare Company presents exciting, accessible and contemporary productions of Shakespeare and other dramatized classics in innovative and unique theatre performances. The Company performs and tours in metropolitan and regional cities and remote and outback locations, from Melbourne and Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens to Kakadu National Park and Beswick Falls in the Northern Territory.

THE MALPA PROJECT

MALPA aims to provide a range of services and education to respond to the significant unmet needs of remote and urban communities afflicted by poor health and to engage in health promotion to help reverse the current trends. The project also creates opportunities to develop authentic relationships and understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

 

INSIDE OUT GLOBAL/ COMPASS ARTS DOWNUNDER:

To transform lives by empowering young people to tell their stories and discover their gifts and strengths through filmmaking and the creative arts. To see the world’s youth find, embrace and offer their unique gifts to influence and enrich their cultures.

 

THE ORGANISATION

E QUBED INC [ABN: 30 484 209 287] was established as an Incorporated Association in 2006

Registration Number: A0048482A under the Victorian Associations Incorporation Act (1981). As a public benevolent institution, E QUBED Inc is endorsed to access Income Tax, GST and FBT concessions.

E QUBED INC is also endorsed as a deductible gift recipient.

 

 

 

 

VISION IS NOT SEEING THINGS AS THEY ARE BUT AS THEY WILL BE