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Origin's Phil Craig, Executive General Manager Corporate Affairs, recently donned a hoodie to spend time with a group of young people brought together by the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME).
About the mentoring session
Phil observed an AIME mentoring session run by students at RMIT University in Bundoora (VIC), for local Indigenous students.
The session was just one in a series for the Bundoora, Reservoir and Northcote Secondary School students and focused on the topic of respect. Students broke down what respect meant to them and set personal goals.
"The students were really engaged by the session and I was impressed by how much work their mentors had put in. It was great to see young people making really positive commitments to change their behaviour."
AIME and the Origin Foundation
AIME gives Indigenous high school students the skills, opportunities, beliefs and confidence to finish school at the same rate as their peers. Their model has proven to dramatically improve the chances of Indigenous young people finishing school.
The AIME program runs out of a range of Australian Universities, including:
We are partnering with AIME to extend the reach of their program to more universities and further develop their online capability.
Phil says it's a valuable partnership. "By encouraging Indigenous students to believe in themselves AIME's having a really positive and demonstrable impact on student performance at school. Education is so important and it's great to think that we might be helping these students along a really positive life path."
AIME's 2011 report card showed that their program is having a significant impact on the education results of student participants, with 93 per cent of Year 10 participants progressing to Year 11. Research shows that compared with this only 74 per cent of students from the broad Indigenous population move on to Year 11.
More about AIME
Visit the AIME website, or check out AIME TV to watch how the program really works.