Hope Vale

Hope Vale continued to experience a reduction in O-Hub activity, in comparison to pre-COVID levels. This was a direct result of community responses to the threat of coronavirus and COVID Safe Plans impacting the normal flow and traffic of community members into the O-Hub at any one time. Ongoing Sorry Business and changes to CDP activity requirements, meant that overall engagement levels in Hope Vale reduced during the period. The community also experienced numerous power and telecommunications outages. O-Hub staff worked with service providers to identify strategies in relation to other challenges, such as disengaged youth and community disturbances.

With support from the Australian Government, community members have been working hard on designing their Local Partnership Structure, which is reflective of a broad cross section of community members and is empowered to negotiate directly with Government on policies, programs and initiatives relating to Hope Vale. Community members have also been gaining significant experience in influencing local program and service delivery as part of the Joint Decision-Making Process, which has resulted in government funding being directed back to Hope Vale for the co-design of local solutions.

MPower members who attended the O-Hub during January to June completed quality money management sessions that increased their financial knowledge and skills around budgeting, banking and debt reduction. Members also participated in financial counselling sessions, reflecting a return to pre-COVID participation levels. Homelands membership continued to grow with a new family group signing up to meet their collective costs of home ownership. The Mayi Market service has been especially successful in Hope Vale—more than $30,000 was spent on 559 fresh and affordable food boxes, which is much higher than the other communities with this service. The take up of the service has also continued to increase with 33 new customers signed up to its new subscription model.

Hope Vale families continue to prioritise their children’s education. This was reflected in CYAAA’s Hope Vale campus retaining its position as the top attending Indigenous school in Queensland for Semester 1, with an average attendance rate of 87.1 per cent. Nine new SET accounts were also opened during the period—one of which was for a onemonth-old baby. Total SET contributions reached $41,605 between January and June, which is one of the highest value of contributions in three years. The O-Hub, responsible for the support and sign-up of accounts in Cooktown, presented on SET and its many benefits to Cooktown My Pathways CDP participants in February—resulting in two new sign-ups.

Community members came out in droves to attend the Pama Platform launch, hosted by the O-Hub in February—some even travelled all the way from Cooktown just to investigate how the Platform would be a helpful empowerment tool for them. There were 67 registered Pama Platform users at the end of June. The O-Hub hosted a number of visitors to Hope Vale between January to June. This included the Minister for Seniors and Disability Services and Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, the Hon Craig Crawford MP who visited the community in April and discussed the work of the O-Hub. In June, O-Hub staff met with Jawun Executives, as part of the Executives’ visit to celebrate the 20-Year partnership between Jawun and Cape York, and shared their community’s future aspirations. O-Hub staff participated in International Women’s Day celebrations, and a diverse range of CYAAA events and initiatives across the semester, including cooking a hot breakfast for students and their families as part of the school’s attendance strategies. They also joined community members at the Hope Vale Aboriginal Shire Council’s opening of the Pioneer Hall, which acknowledges Elders past and present who were pioneers for the return back to Hope Vale.

While there have been challenges in the start of 2021, we are excited at the level of participation by community members and look forward to continuing to empower our members further.

As an initiative to ensure high attendance, a hot breakfast is served to CYAAA students on Friday mornings. Community service providers, including the O-Hub, assist in cooking first thing in the morning.