Picture: BROOKE LITTLEWOOD
A MILLICENT education facility is opening its doors to raise much needed funds for building maintenance and youth programs.
The Millicent Community Learning Centre has transformed two of its rooms into a “community hub” and have made them available for public hire.
Case manager Mellissa Norman said every dollar raised would go towards the centre’s upkeep and youth programs.
“We fund a lot of courses for our students and they have programs including a construction program, completed on site with Neil Reilly and a well-being program, which takes students out once a week and gives them the chance to focus on their well-being,” Ms Norman said.
“They get to take some time out and perhaps go to some places they might not usually get the opportunity to go to.
“They are the two main programs we have running at the moment.”
Ms Norman said extra revenue would also cover the costs of licences for students and potentially reintroduce TAFE courses on campus.
“A lot of our students are on a work ready path so they need their white cards, forklift licences and that sort of thing, which ends up being quite costly,” she said.
“We would like to see more courses run not only for students, but we could potentially have some of the training providers come down and hold courses for the community to attend.
“We still have people coming in asking about courses thinking that this is a TAFE building and they can access the TAFE courses through here, so I guess there is the potential to make that connection with TAFE again and have them come down and run one or two courses.
“It does not have to be big courses or anything, even beginner computer courses have been asked for before.
“That is the way I would like to see it head eventually, so if we could get some community groups in here to use the space that would be amazing.”
The community learning centre aims to also use the space for training to upskill students and establish to help businesses hire skilled workers.
