Pride of Australia nominees feed students' dreams

ANDREW Foster and Amy Bradshaw take on plenty of challenges at Bowden Brompton Community School, but the toughest nuts to crack are the kids themselves.

ANDREW Foster and Amy Bradshaw take on plenty of kitchen challenges at Bowden Brompton Community School, but the toughest nuts to crack are the kids themselves.

The Activate Community group volunteers spend a morning each week at the school, which is attended by students with serious behavioural and other problems who cannot go to mainstream schools.

They become personal mentors to students while teaching them how to whip up a range of hot breakfasts for their classmates and teachers.

Ms Bradshaw, 25, of Glengowrie says it takes patience and persistence to gain the students’ trust.

“Their defences are so high at the beginning because of where they have come from and what they have been through,” she says.

“They don’t respond to authority. They were quite full on and intimidating at first. I (decided) to wait until they realise we are here for the long term and then the barriers come down.

“Now they are some of our favourite people in the whole world. A lot of them now really respect us and treat us with a lot of value.”

Ms Bradshaw, a social sciences and psychology student, and small business owner Mr Bradshaw have been nominated for a Pride Of Australia award in the Community Service category.

Mr Foster, 32, of Belair, says the effort pays off in “quite intense” relationships with the students about their school and home life, their interests and ambitions.

“Pretty much every kid we meet thinks they don’t have a future,” he says.

“Some of them tell us straight out … that they are worth nothing. We give them the encouragement that we got growing up that they have missed out on.

“After a few months they start to treat us like mates. You can tell the difference and we are usually encouraged by the way we get ‘paid out’ by them.

“(We tell them) you can do this thing called life. You can have goals, you can have dreams.”

Ms Bradshaw also volunteers three times a week at Activate Community’s youth drop-in centre for refugees at Bowden, helping them with cooking skills and housing and employment issues.

Both she and Mr Foster have helped with fundraising and have volunteered in Cambodia to set up a school for stateless Vietnamese children, who can neither go home nor receive any support from the Cambodian government.

Mr Foster, a building designer, drew up the plans himself.

Activate Community is a Christian church group but Mr Foster says “we never ever talk about religious stuff” with students.

To nominate your community hero, click here