Zeb’s story a smashing success

A year’s hard planning by the staff at SmashCare in Brisbane has resulted in a well-planned, well-supported scheme to help indigenous youth train to become panel beaters and spray painters.

The recent launch of Brisbane-based SmashCare's program to assist indigenous youth to train as panel beaters and sprayers has already generated a success story. The project is the brainchild of SmashCare's operations manager Mark Reid and grew from a trip to Grafton where he saw young indigenous boys hanging around the streets.

The 12-week training program, backed by DuPont and PPG, has taken over a year to organise and was launched at Smashcare's Stafford facility in March.

It immediately attracted the 12 bodyshops needed to make the scheme viable and kicked off on 4 April.

“This scheme has generated heaps of interest and we're getting phone calls from all over Queensland from people wanting to be involved,” Reid said. “It's a good, honest project and it's great that so many people are getting on board.”

 

Zeb's story

Zebbie Rusteau was able to benefit from the program before it launched. The 17-year-old grew up in Stafford Heights on Brisbane’s north side.

Well spoken and mature beyond his years, Zeb has an Aboriginal mum and Kenyan dad. Zeb concedes his charming smile and good looks have “gotten him out of plenty of strife”.

Despite being clever and doing well at school, he admits to being easily distracted so his grades dropped and absenteeism was common. Peer pressure and curiosity led to smoking marijuana and eventually Zeb dropped out of school in Year 11.

“After I left school I fell into a rut of sitting around all day; the days just ran into one another and weekdays didn’t feel any different to weekends,” Zeb said.

“The only thing I had any real interest in was cars. Mum’s boyfriend was a mechanic and I’d spend hours with my head under the bonnet, watching as he tinkered away on cars.

“I knew this is what I wanted to do but just didn’t have the drive.

“I did a couple of short courses in automotive and construction work. The courses were interesting but just finished with a certificate and a pat on the back, no job. So I’d go back to sitting around and smoking dope.”

Towards the end of 2010, Zeb noticed his mum was struggling to keep the household afloat as she could no longer work and was awaiting double hip replacement surgery.

He called the employment agency, which had just received a listing from SmashCare looking for a spray painting apprentice and couldn’t jump on it fast enough. Zeb then had an interview with the Apprenticeship Service and then an interview with SmashCare and started work in February.

He is currently on a three-month probation period prior to being signed up as an apprentice and will take part in the 12-week training program. ”

 

COmmunity partnerships

Zeb said he’s not concerned about this probationary period as he intends to give it his best he won’t let them down.

“I’m earning a wage now,” he said. “It’s just easier, I can help Mum out and if I want something I can buy it.”

Zeb is already applying some of his newly learned skills to a community project. He is helping with the refurbishment and conversion of a maxi taxi for a 21 year-old man who was paralysed after falling from a horse and whose family couldn't afford a suitable vehicle for him.

“It just goes to show that not only can this project, take disadvantaged people off the unemployment list, but give them the heart to want to give back,” Mark Reid said. “We want more stories like Zeb’s.”

The program has been partnered by Busy At Work Indigenous Employment Solutions, and has also secured a mini-bus from Sci-Fleet Toyota to transport the trainees around Brisbane.

For more information call Mark Reid at SmashCare on 07 3350 3853 or email mark.reid@smashcare.com.au