Innovative Emma opens the way to employment

The $10,000 Westfield Local Heroes grant is currently being used to help fund SPARK program participants in completing their road ready course and obtaining their drivers licence. It will also be used to help with the 4 new SPARK programs commencing thisyear which will see 60 - 70 new particpants needing support with childcare and drivers licences.

Thanks to Emma Sckrabei, 175 people now have work.

As manager of the SPARK Training and Employment initiative, it’s her job to organise education, training and jobs for unemployed people in industries such as construction, retail and early childhood education.

But she went a step further by sourcing extra funds to pay for some of the necessities of becoming work-ready after finishing training or study.

“What training doesn’t include is all the different tickets and licences that they actually need to be able to step into a job,” she says.

“The more people that are educated and employed in a community, the better a community is going to be,” she says.

A diverse range of people benefit from Emma’s work, including young people, women returning to the workforce, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and people with disabilities.

The ACT government subsidises the cost of training, which is also offered in hospitality, aged care, horticulture, conservation and land management and business administration.

But many people would not be able to complete their qualifications without Emma’s determination to remove roadblocks such as having no money for transport, needing help with reading and writing or just having someone believe in them.

“We access funds to buy bus tickets, petrol vouchers, uniforms and food vouchers,” says Emma, who checks up on participants regularly.

“We have a really strong completion rate on our programs because we really do care about people.”

Emma says it’s humbling to be voted a Westfield Local Hero.

For further information on the Westfield Local Heroes program, click here.