Palm Island - making a difference to young Indigenous lives

Our partnership with the Cathy Freeman Foundation (CFF) recently opened up an unforgettable opportunity for a few people in our team to visit the wonderful community on Palm Island. For me it was an extraordinary experience which I was fortunate to share with our Consumer General Manager and head of our Indigenous Advisory Committee, Daniel Ridgway, Community Manager, Jo Powell, QLD Territory Manager, Katie Dwyer, and Talent Acquisition Lead, Nick Jones.

It’s not often that a ‘job’ delivers the personal triple bottom line of adventure, friendship and externally validated measurable impact on the world. I have been blessed after a decade working with the roll-out of Low Aromatic Fuel (LAF), to have been gifted with all three. The visit to Palm Island community with its welcoming people and bursting with life youngsters was for me a tangible closing of the circle with the good done by our roll out of LAF now going the next step to help close the educational gap.

The remote community of Palm is most easily reached by small aircraft but can also be reached by a two hour ferry ride from Townsville a few times a week. For convenience and a ‘money where your mouth is’ faith in our aviation gasoline we flew in with twin engine splendour. A disappointingly (for me) un-rollercoaster like flight in the tiny aircraft to the island, had us off to what looked from the air like (and really was) a tropical paradise. The people were warm and welcoming and soon after landing we were all officially welcomed to country by Manburra Elder Uncle Allan Palm Island. A tour of the island, the foreshore works and dinner at the ‘Bistro’ then allowed some time for the more serious task of an evening fishing clinic on the jetty. Jo Powell was a keen student but was quickly replaced by the youngsters Eddie, Sioni, the funster Freddie (quick with a joke and a magic trick or two) and little Shona. All took turns to flick lures late into the night and to suggest their favourites in the tackle box. I would have more fun going home without them I thought! So my deal with them was – turn up for breakfast and the ‘Back to School’ march, go to school and they could have their selection out of the tackle box. Smiles and laughs and sleight of hand tricks all around (as Katie Dwyer can testify to)!

An early start the next day was followed with a community breakfast, then the ‘Back to School’ march complete with noise makers for the kids and police sirens calling people out of their homes and drawing more kids into the march. We finally delivered the hordes of kids to each of the schools (Bwgcomlan Community State and St Michael's). The rest of the morning was then spent visiting each class with CFF stalwart Ruth Gorringe, Program Coordinator, delivering CFF pencil cases to each and every class and student to reward them for being in class. A quick lunch where a local K9 character laconically psyched us all out of tasty bits and then it was time to organise the community BBQ held at Bwgcomlan State school. With the BBQ lit the stage was set for Daniel Ridgway to production line cook his way through a mountain of meat. All supervised by our new K9 friend who sampled a statistically irrelevant number of the snags. Five wagging tails on the doggy scale and a few hundred satisfied community members were the result. It was a big, hot day with lots to do and a great team to do it with.

My thoughts about the visit? I saw a resilient smiling people working hard to shrug off the trauma of the previous nine decades. And if the kids on the jetty are a measure, a deep well of joy and potential that only needs some opportunities to help unlock and the playing field levelled. The kids in and out of the class were a joy. The CFF staff were warm, bubbling with confidence and more than capable of weaving order out of the rambunctious chaos of the inaugural ‘Back to School’ march. It was a lifetime highlight to be invited to play a very small and all too brief role in what CFF are doing at Palm Island and I am immensely proud that Viva Energy has partnered with them to make a difference.