Indigenous Training Network

Jobs Australia Indigenous Training Network (ITN) is a network of over 90 Indigenous organisations in remote and regional Australia who deliver culturally appropriate training in Indigenous Communities. Earlier this month, they held its inaugural national conference in Alice Springs.

"The conference was like few others that I have attended in that the focus was on indigenous people telling their stories how they have overcome adversity to then contribute to their communities in significant ways and it was full of fairly raw emotion," says Infoxchange Executive Director, Andrew Mahar.

The ITN builds the capacity of member organisations by supporting their existing training services and helping them to share their experiences and good practices. The network also works to identify immediate and future community training needs and to share resources and facilities.

At the conference, a new online resource was launched by Jobs Australia and Infoxchange Australia. To help facilitate the sharing of resources and facilities, Infoxchange has been working with Jobs Australia to build an online directory and resources database. This will, over time, become a significant resource that will provide ready access to training materials that are culturally and context specific.

One of the main issues confronting indigenous training organisations is that much of the materials developed for the delivery of accredited training uses language and concepts that have little relevance and are difficult to work through.

The online service will allow indigenous training organisations to work collaboratively, share information and develop training materials. The ITN promotes 'hands on' collaboration between Indigenous training practitioners and mentors those in emerging training organisations.

Through Jobs Australia, the ITN provides a voice for indigenous training organisations to federal, state and territory governments regarding the training needs of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.