GRANTS MADE

Review The Caledonia Foundation’s previous grants:

2010 | Projects suppported 01 July 2009 to 30 June 2010

POLLY AND ME and WALL BOY I Prevention & Early Intervention of Child Abuse & Neglect

POLLY AND ME and WALL BOY are based on true stories sourced during the period of filming The Oasis documentary. The story at the heart of POLLY AND ME serves as a starting point for building the vital community conversation about prevention and early intervention strategies for vulnerable children. WALL BOY reminds us of the important role of outreach workers on the streets.

Both films are accompanied by a comprehensive education and outreach strategy to be rolled out following the launch in 2010. With the support of like-minded philanthropists, the outreach and education campaign will aim to:

> Raise awareness about vulnerable children in Australian society

> Build community capacity to prevent childhood abuse & neglect

> Draw the attention of policy-makers to the importance of investing in early prevention and intervention.

The education and outreach is a collaboration driven by a Steering Group with representatives across prevention and early intervention. The Steering Group includes the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY),The Salvation Army & The Oasis Youth Support Network, The Benevolent Society, The CREATE Foundation, Good Beginnings Australia, The Lighthouse Foundation, Lou’s Place, The Mirabel Foundation, National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse & Neglect, The Smith Family.

The Caledonia Foundation is also indebted to Professor Dorothy Scott from the Australian Centre for Child Protection.

POLLY AND ME will be screened on ABC 1 at 9:30pm on 9 September 2010. The screening will be accompanied by a discussion hosted by Geraldine Doogue.

Image from POLLY AND ME, a Short Film by Shark Island Productions.

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GOOD BEGINNINGS AUSTRALIA I Core Capacity Grant

Good Beginnings is a national charity that provides practical, community-based parenting programs and support to ensure children get the best start in life. Through Good Beginnings’ 80 programs and 29 sites around Australia, our 100 staff and 600 trained volunteers support, educate and encourage parents to provide them with the knowledge, practical skills, community networks and confidence to raise their children well. Since 1997, Good Beginnings has helped 40,000 young children and their families through a range of its programs.

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OASIS YOUTH SUPPORT NETWORK I Curriculum Resource

The Caledonia Foundation is continuing to support the education and outreach activities associated with THE OASIS initiative.

The Caledonia Foundation engaged the Inspire Foundation to develop education materials that are linked to the curriculum for every state and territory for English, Geography, Media Studies, PD/Health/PE. The materials will be distributed via Education Services Australia – formerly the Australian Curriculum Corporation and are available on THE OASIS documentary website.

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CURE FOR LIFE FOUNDATION

The Cure for Life Foundation was founded in 2003 by Dr Charles Teo and seeks to advance the research and treatment of brain tumours within Australia, while increasing public awareness of the incidence of brain tumours. Brain tumours are the most common, life-treatening tumours in children. Behind Leukemia, they are the most common of all childhood cancers. The Caledonia Foundation contributed capacity funding to support this vital research.

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HANDS ON LEARNING I Mornington Peninsula Program

Hands On Learning Australia has developed a set of creative, flexible, learning programs designed to provide an alternative learning framework for disengaged students to reconnect with their school and community. Students are invited to join a small team formed from Years 7 to 10.

Students are engaged one day per week working on tangible projects in their local community. The students remain part of their normal school program the other four days.

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BEYOND EMPATHY | Bowraville

Beyond Empathy's use of art has two purposes: art as a medium enabling young people to consider their stories, explore issues, build skills and improve their social and economic opportunities within community; and art to facilitate community members working together to address community issues and young people's needs. With our support, Beyond Empathy will engage in a multi-year program to address inter-generational disadvantage in Bowraville, NSW. In 2010, the community now has a social enteprise alongside arts-based intervention programs.

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DOCUMENTARY AUSTRALIA FOUNDATION

The Caledonia Foundation is a proud supporter of the Documentary Australia Foundation (DAF), a private philanthropic initiative that recognizes the power of documentary as a catalyst for social change. Caledonia Foundation has provided capacity-building assistance to DAF, which acts as a resource to bring together philanthropic grantmakers, charities and filmmakers for community benefit.

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THE MIRABEL FOUNDATION | Funding for core services in NSW

The Mirabel Foundation supports children who have typically been abandoned by their parents or their parents have died (in both instances commonly as a result of drug/substance abuse). The Caledonia Foundation has, since its inception, provided support to Mirabel’s education programs and continues its support in 2010.

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NEWCASTLE REGIONAL ART GALLERY I ArtCart Education Program

The Caledonia Foundation is supporting the NRAG’s Family Programs which provide experiential-learning focused events and activities designed specifically for children aged 3-10 years and their families.

The core of the program is ArtCart which is a mobile art studio on wheels presented each Saturday and Sunday. A key focus of ArtCart is to connect participants to works in the collection, interpret them and then respond through the art making activities. The program is run each week by a local artist supported by volunteers recruited from the University of Newcastle Bachelor of Teaching program.

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NATIONAL CENTRE FOR CHILDHOOD GRIEF I Core Capacity Grant

The National Centre for Childhood Grief provides support in a safe place where children grieving a death of a loved one or relative – typically a parent - can share their experience as they learn to live with its impact on their lives.

The National Centre for Childhood Grief is a well-established organization, whose founders, Dianne & Mal McKissock, are internationally recognized for their expertise in the specialist field of childhood bereavement.

The centre also provides education and training for individuals, schools and other organizations handling the grief of children and young people.

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TARONGA FOUNDATION I Burbangana Youth Mentoring Program

The Burbangana program is a joint initiative between Taronga Conservation Society Australia and Community Services’ Metro Intensive Support Services (ISS). Established in 2007, Burbangana is specially tailored to the needs of Aboriginal children by connecting Aboriginal culture to relevant and enjoyable hands-on learning experiences at Taronga Zoo. It is helping some of our most vulnerable young people aged 12 to 17 acquire a range of crucial skills.

The program provides individual mentoring to young participants, who get to visit the zoo one day a week for three to six months and go behind the scenes to take part in the care of animals.

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KALDOR PUBLIC ART PROJECTS I Arts-based Education Software Pilot Program

The Caledonia Foundation has provided seed funding for the development of new contemporary art education initiative using interactive whiteboard technology. The program will provide new content customised for primary students to learn about Australian contemporary arts history and aims to stimulate individual creativity, expression and the technological skills of children at a formative stage in their education and personal development.

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ARTSCAPE BIENNIAL I Environmental Sculpture Exhibition - Education Program

The artsCape education program aims to build educational capital by offering children based in the Northern Rivers, NSW, the opportunity to experience nationally significant visual artworks in their own backyard. artsCape 2010 will incorporate an Education Program aimed at engaging with hundreds of local primary and high school students. Artists experienced in working with children will be engaged to work with students on a number of projects to produce and exhibit artworks as part of the exhibition. Visual Art teachers have also been engaged to produce comprehensive education kits which all schools will be able to access from the Artscape website.

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The Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal

The Caledonia Foundation collaborated with the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal (FRRR) over three years, from March 2008, in support of the PEERS program (Participation, Equipment, Education, Resources and Sustainability) across rural and regional Australia. The Caledonia-funded PEERS program offers grassroots support to small communities through projects which assist disadvantaged young people in a leveraged, sustainable way.

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THE AUSTRALIAN LITERACY & NUMERACY FOUNDATION | Palm Island, QLD

The Caledonia Foundation has committed to provision of Literacy Packs to support the Early Language & Literacy Project in Palm Island from 2010-12. The three-year cross-generational program includes: 1) an Early Childhood Parent & Community Program - an early intervention to prepare and support children for successful literacy learning in the early schooling years; 2) First Language Literacy - the revival and maintenance of Indigenous First Languages through the conversion of oral languages into literary resources; and 3) Community Action Support - a youth participation model of literacy improving educational and employment opportunities for young Indigenous Australians in rural and remote areas.

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EXODUS FOUNDATION I Literacy Tutorial Centre (Ashfield)

The Caledonia Foundation has renewed its commitment to the Schoolwise Program (Ashfield) for three years from 2010-12. Schoolwise is an intensive literacy skills program for children in Years 1 to 6 who are at risk of dropping out of school due to childhood depression, violence, family disintegration, education disruption and learning disabilities. The Schoolwise program was designed by Macquarie University Special Education Centre (MUSEC) and uses the MULTILIT (Making Up Lost Time in Literacy) system and evaluation methodology. MULTILIT is characterized by individualised remedial literacy exercises using sounding out skills, sight word recognition, spelling and one-to-one tutoring. Since its inception in 2007, the Schoolwise program has achieved excellent outcomes for children with significant literacy challenges.

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ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES | ARTside-in! Visual Arts Education Outreach

The Caledonia Foundation has renewed its commitment to support AGNSW’s ARTsidein! program from 2010-13. ARTsidein! is an educative outreach initiative designed by the Public Programs Department of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW). The program targets Years 10, 11 and 12 secondary visual arts students – and their teachers - from secondary schools in NSW which are classified as geographically, socioeconomically or culturally disadvantaged. The project enables students, who would otherwise have limited opportunity to access the Gallery’s resources, to participate in structured engagement with the Gallery’s collection, exhibitions and programs.

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COUNTRY EDUCATION FOUNDATION AUSTRALIA | Supporting young Australians in rural and remote areas

The Caledonia Foundation is seed funding the establishment of nine new country education foundations in Australia over the next three years, as part of the national activities of the Country Education Foundation of Australia (CEFA).

Established in 1994, CEFA exists to improve the education and career prospects of young people in regional and rural Australia by providing financial assistance, encouragement and support to individual students, often from disadvantaged backgrounds, through facilitating the formation and operation of local, community-based education foundations.

With funding from The Caledonia Foundation, CEFA will support the establishment of nine new education foundations. These foundations will in turn provide grants to local youth who are leaving school and need assistance to make the transition into further education or their chosen vocation.

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SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY EDUCATION | Rebuilding arts education in NSW

Sydney Theatre Company Education has committed to a program which will double participation in STC Ed programs from a current 30,000 to 60,000 by the year 2011; and rebuild capacity for delivering youth arts and drama education in New South Wales.

STC’s commitment will close the gap in state education, providing meaningful arts experiences to a range of young people across New South Wales. The extended reach will ensure that children from disadvantaged communities, and/or remote and regional communities have equal access to high quality, live performing arts.

Support from the Caledonia Foundation will enable STC to draw on its its unique education capability to craft rich theatre experiences for school students with plays that challenge and illuminate aspects of daily life.

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BIG PICTURE EDUCATION AUSTRALIA | Educating one student at a time

Big Picture Education Australia (BPEA), a US-inspired initiative which aims to influence education policy nationally and catalyse vital changes in education by generating and sustaining innovative, individualised schooling. The BPEA model is a rigorous and highly personalised approach to education, combining academic work with ‘real world’ learning in schools which are small by design. It focuses on “educating one student at a time” and places the students and their interests at the heart of the learning process. A key to this is placing students in an internship with a mentor, in the world of work and community, every week of the school term.

BPEA will open new schools in Tasmania and WA in 2010. The Caledonia Foundation is providing capacity building assistance to support the expansion of the BPEA model in Australia.

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