Indigenous youth are twice as unlikely to gain employment relative to their non-Indigenous peers. The Indigenous employment rate decreased by two percentage points between the 2006 and 2016 census, and lags behind the non-Indigenous employment rate by a staggering 25 percentage points.
Why is this really the case, and what can be done about it?

Bama Services is a recognised social enterprise based in Far North Queensland. After ten years of rapid growth, the contract services organisation now reliably tenders and delivers upon multi-million dollar civil and landscape construction contracts, which has won them immense praise and endorsement from industry groups and various levels of government.
But Bama is concerned with far more than its bottom line, and has a vital social outcome as the core of its focus – Indigenous employment.

Over its 10 years of operations, Bama services has maintained an Indigenous employment rate of 75% or higher; either directly employing, or supporting the employment, of over 300 Indigenous persons.

In this episode of Time to Listen, Cade Dawkins, the General Manager of Bama Services, outlines exactly why Bama places value and emphasis on this social outcome, which has only served to take the organisation from strength to strength. His counterpart on this episode, Jono Coker, is an Indigenous man and Bama's longest serving employee. He has seen the organisation evolve from a humble gardens-maintenance enterprise to the stature that it holds today. Both men also comment on how the organisation's support and wellbeing program – which could serve as a model for any medium enterprise, and underpins the entirety of the organisation's operations – is paramount for consistently meeting their social ambitions.

Thank you for taking the time to listen.

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