On Tuesday night, Dismantle was announced as a winner of one of two Impact100 Primary Grants. Impact100 is a philanthropy initiative where 100 people donate a minimum of $1,000 each and then decide who to give it to. It’s a hugely exciting win, because it means that we get $100,000 to put towards getting our ReNew Properties project up and running. By 2020, we'll be putting 40 BikeRescue grads a year through a traineeship that will complete the pathway for youth people in tough spots from falling through the cracks to proper employment and education.
ReNew Properties is something we’ve been working on for a couple of years. It’s a professional and commercial property maintenance business with the sole purpose of providing BikeRescue graduates with paid work experience to help them get their life back on track. At the moment we do the same thing with BikeDr, but they can only host 10 kids a year out of 400+ BikeRescue graduates. the moment we do the same thing with BikeDr, but they can only host 10 kids a year out of 400+ BikeRescue graduates.
As Pat said in his speech, while ReNew isn’t a long-term employment option, it performs the incredibly important role of creating a routine for the young people involved, and getting them in regular contact with supportive adults. “It'll be simple stuff like mulching, graffiti removal and gardening,” Pat said at the annual Impact100 dinner. “But it's pre-pre-employment; the real value is stuff like rocking up on time, checking in with mentors. This is what gets a young person to get and maintain a training and employment.”
Property maintenance works really well for this purpose. As Pat said, “It's outdoors, it's exposure to a range of potential trades, it's hands-on and it's a changing variety of tasks. Also, rather than a retail shop, it's servicing big business with consistent and long term needs.”
The 100k grant will allow us to buy the gear and hire the right staff to get the project off the ground. Starting from early next year, three or four trainees will meet at our headquarters in West Leederville each morning for a coffee and brief, hop in a van and, working with our Property Maintenance Staff, do the jobs that are too small for a tradies or business, but perfect for entry-level skill sets. And then, when something happens in the trainee's life, like it does way too often, we'll always have our youth team on-hand to provide the support they need.
We already have a list of clients waiting for us to get started. Each of them wants to provide employment in a way that creates social change, but can’t find anything in Perth. We’re super excited that we now have the money to provide that service.
Massive thanks to everyone involved in Impact100!
