Introduction
Indigenous people are empowered by Aboriginal Employment Strategy (AES), a national recruitment and training agency, which provides work opportunities and helps job seekers thrive in their careers through mentorship, training, and specialized support.
In addition to being a place of employment, AES is a place of learning (Aboriginal Employment Strategy, 2022). Local inhabitants, as well as the rest of the community, can benefit economically and socially from the efforts of social entrepreneurs in this category. This organization, which works with business owners, government officials, and community leaders to help Native Americans achieve economic self-sufficiency, is known as AES.
Throughout the last two decades, AES has been leading a revolutionary economic and social movement that has been tremendously successful in changing the narratives inside communities to one of excellence and opportunity.
Role of Aboriginal Employment Strategy (AES)
In the early 1990s, a collaboration between the indigenous Kamilaroi population and the cotton business in Moree, New South Wales, was formed. In the midst of a moment of immense community breakdown and despair, an astonishing teamwork gave rise to the now-powerful Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment and Training (AES) organization.
This game plan was designed by the Gwydir Valley Cotton Growers Association (GVCGA), key Aboriginal leaders, and Dick Estens (Aboriginal Employment Strategy, 2022). That’s why they’ve built Australia’s best-known national employment agency for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They’re responsible for the vast majority of employment opportunities for this group in Australia today.
Since the AES was created in 1997, at least 20,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been employed. The AES was created by Dick Estens AO, who has played a key role in this monumental achievement. As a relationship company, AES is aimed at empowering individuals to alter their lives by promoting self-esteem and a sense of purpose. A positive feedback loop of Aboriginal people assisting each other find jobs and a long-term career path is created when we invest in the future of our communities.
Aborigines who live in the area and are interested in working with businesses and the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population have been the personnel of the Aboriginal Employment Services (AES) since 1997 (Shergold, 2006). The intention of this approach was to give Aboriginal people a stronger feeling of self-worth. For much too long, the public had been excluded from the decision-making process when it came to this issue.
AES founders realized early on that retaining Aboriginal workers would need a large amount of coaching. The AES Aboriginal employees invested in individuals, giving them hope, pride, and the ability to take care of their own lives and the lives of their families and communities. This was the initial AES logo, and it was made out of the Aboriginal flag and a cotton plant, reflecting the partnership between indigenous peoples and the production of cotton (Aboriginal Employment Strategy, 2022).
The AES was also gaining popularity among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as corporate Australia began to offer a wide range of banking positions to them. The first Australian traineeships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons were launched in Australia in 2002 by ANZ Bank, the first signatory to the AES. NAB and Westpac joined Commonwealth soon after. Programs like this allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to earn their HSC and high school diplomas while working part-time in the banking industry. The AES’s traineeship program has been emulated all around the country and is now a pillar of the organization.
More than 1,500 local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are employed in 13 offices from Sydney to Darwin by the AES, which places them in more than 1,500 employment each year across every industry, sector, and level. Over 150 school and full-time training programs are completed each year by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youngsters. It employs more than 80 full-time Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to manage its offices (Aboriginal Employment Strategy, 2022). For AES, the training and mentoring it provides to its own Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff is a significant component of its commitment to their well-being (Jordan & Mavec, 2018). Additionally, AES offers a large contingent of temporary workers to meet the demands of businesses around the country.
Much of AES’s success may be attributed to the mentorship and help provided by people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent (Aboriginal Employment Strategy, 2022). As a result, the AES has quickly grown from a small work initiative in Moree in 1997 to become the country’s top employer of Indigenous people.
The AES is being led by CEO Kristy Masella, an Aboriginal entrepreneur from Central Queensland who was named one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women in 2016. (Aboriginal Employment Strategy, 2022). AES is providing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons with life counseling, yarning circles, mentorship, role modeling, and other approaches to assist them acquire the core skills they need to secure a job and prepare them for a successful professional future. A complete set of advisory services has been formed, including professional recruitment, professional mentoring, Aboriginal Cultural Respect Training, and RAP development, and our Labor Hire firm has grown by 500% in just two years.
Role of Truth-telling
People from indigenous backgrounds have been seeking an extensive truth-telling process about Australia’s past that encompasses not just colonial oppression and conflict, but also Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s resistance to colonization. I am a firm believer in the need for more corporate and government leaders to take the lead in identifying, healing, and safeguarding Native Americans’ rich cultural history. Indigenous accountants, for example, have a responsibility to adopt a proactive, instructional approach in the fight to heal economic, social, and financial obstacles, and our Indigenous communities are seeking collaborative reforms.
With AES’s truth-telling strategies, Aboriginal individuals are being enticed to join the NSW public sector and their careers are being aided in their advancement. Thanks to this work, I’ve learnt to understand and accept cultural differences. My indigenous coworkers are also benefiting from the encouragement I’m providing them.
References
Adams, S., Martin, R., Phillips, S., Macgregor, C., & Westaway, M. (2018). Truth-telling in the wake of European contact: Historical investigation of Aboriginal skeletal remains from Normanton. Archaeologies, 14(3), 412-442.
Burney, L. (2018). Truth-telling.
Daley, P. (2018). Enduring traditions of aboriginal protest: Truth-telling amid the dark shadows of history. Griffith Review, (60), 67-81.
Gujaga Foundation. (2022). Retrieved February 8, 2022, from https://www.gujaga.org.au/community.
Mencevska, I. (2019). Truth telling in Australia’s historical narrative. NEW: Emerging Scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies, 5(1).
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