Going to Canteen Creek!

I (Bill) found out this week that I will be able to make the trip to Canteen Creek. The uni has found sponsors to fund our trip, which costs about $5,000 per person. We will be leaving on a Monday and return that Saturday in mid July. The only drawback is that at this time Cristin will not get to go with me. We are still working on that, but if possible she may me meet me in Alice Springs for a trip to Ayers Rock.

For those of you who don’t know, I have been working on a project for my entrepreneurship class for an Indigenous community located in the Northern Territory of Australia. We will fly to Alice Springs then drive for a day and a half. We will be camping out on the side of the road in the Outback (Please….no snake or dingo stories from you guys!).

Pretty much 100% of this community of 200 people are supported through government funding. The community only has a government run grocery store, health centre and school (up to year 8). Other than that there are no other businesses.

A group of 3 men went to the community work program director asking for assistance to set up a business utilizing their native stingless bees. The director contacted our uni and we worked to develop this business all semester.

There have been many hurdles as communication with community has been very difficult. We had no idea how much honey we could produce or even what kind of stingless bees were in Canteen Creek. Our goal has been to create a business that fosters learning and growth in the community. As most community members only have an eighth grade education, we have lined up several training opportunities in stingless beekeeping, which is quite new and completely different to commercial beekeeping, and basic business skills. The idea is to reward the employees with higher wages for completing training courses. They will also be in charge of training new employees the skills they have learned after the first 2 years. We have tons of potential with the community, we hope the business will be successful, but at the same time we look for the employees to gain confidence and skills that can be transferred to other businesses.

Here are some links to the community:

http://www.deadlymob.org/col2_ob.cfm?randid=945158

http://www.barklygroupschools.com/html/canteen_creek.html

http://www.schools.nt.edu.au/canteen/

This link is a blog set up by another group in my class. There were 3 groups working on this project. This group and two others from my group will be making the trip. We will put together one business plan from the 3 plans to present to the community.

http://abc.net.au/catapult/interact/gameplan/honey.htm

I am so excited for this trip! What we are doing for this community falls right in line the goal of Rotary to promote world peace and understanding. I will have lots to report to my Australian and American Rotary clubs. I can’t wait!!