Inclusive employment program celebrated

CONCOURSE 91 at Red Energy Arena was abuzz on Tuesday night as local business and community leaders gathered to celebrate the achievements of GROW.

Based on assisting people facing barriers to the workforce the program was able to help 240 job seekers in Greater Bendigo find employment.

GROW lost funding for its Bendigo, Ballarat, Gippsland and Shepparton branches in the last State budget.

Meg Price, head of GROW at Geelong based Give Where You Live foundation said the news had been disappointing but that lobbying for funding for the program would continue.

“The infrastructure is there, the models there, we’ve got incredible partners like in Be.Bendigo who completely get the design, we’re delivering results, we’ve got the social licence do it and an incredible group of business partners” Ms Price said.

“All it needs is that funding partner.”

GROW is founded on enabling and assisting people facing barriers to the workforce to find employment.

Be.Bendigo CEO Rob Herbert said GROW was a connection program that brought together employers with an employee base that can’t find work.

“Tonight some of those testimonies were around changing the way they recruit, and that’s a lot of what the programs about, just having an open mind about what those opportunities look like,” he said.

A key talking point at the event was that there was still a critical need for these types of programs in Bendigo.

Rob Murphy, who led GROW in Bendigo, said Tuesday night’s celebration was reflective of the advocacy that the program stood for as new stakeholders were able to come together and learn from each other.

Mr Murphy said he hoped the recent Commonwealth games cancelation and subsequent funding commitments would signal new opportunities for GROW to be extended.