Wollongong veg box chemical free local

Green Connect – a Wollongong based social enterprise – has won a NSW Government contract to help solve youth unemployment. Green Connect has been engaged to create employment opportunities for disengaged young people aged 15-24, who live in the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Southern Highlands, and face multiple and complex barriers to employment. 

The contract is part of the Youth Employment Innovation Challenge: a $10 million NSW Government program that provides funding to innovative solutions and ideas that help young people find employment in NSW.

Kylie Flament, General Manager, said:“We’re thrilled to secure this contract, and to grow our work helping tackle youth unemployment in the Illawarra.

“Green Connect set up to create jobs. Jobs for the most disengaged and disadvantaged. Jobs that are meaningful, coupled with training and wrap around support. Jobs that are safe and stable, because sometimes life is not.

“The contract will extend Green Connects’ existing work: creating employment opportunities for young people and former refugees in chemical-free farming and waste recovery.

“This contract is a natural next step for our work. It will mean Green Connect gets paid for the employment outcomes we create, allowing us to invest in more young people in our community.”

Flament concluded: “We designed a program around local young people and what they told us. We are offer a work experience program on our farm, where they can try new things, meet new people, make mistakes, learn and make a difference. We offer accredited training and support. And we provide real and meaningful jobs, in which young people can grow and thrive.”

Green Connect is an Illawarra-based social enterprise that provides jobs, training and support to young people and former refugees. We do this by running a not-for-profit business that works in environmental repair – a growth sector that is jobs rich.