For two years, ROC has been a Gold sponsor of Midwest Life Education, the largest non-governmental provider of drug and health education programmes. Through their ‘Life Education Sessions’ in schools across the Midwest region of Western Australia, they aim to encourage and empower young people to make smart life choices and to help develop skills in the areas of effective decision-making, communication, negotiation, peer resistance and refusal in drugrelated situations. ROC’s funding ensures that Life Education is able to visit schools across the Dongara region, where the Company’s Cliff Head facility is located. In 2010, ROC established a partnership with the Clontarf Foundation. The Foundation aims to improve the education, discipline, self-esteem, life skills and employment prospects of Aboriginal men and these outcomes are achieved through the medium of football.
The Foundation uses the existing passion that Indigenous boys have for football to attract them to attend an Academy. To remain in the Academy, members must consistently endeavour to attend school regularly, apply themselves to the study of appropriate courses and embrace the Academy’s requirements for behaviour and self-discipline. As well as coordinating the football programme, Academy staff mentor and counsel students on a range of behavioural and lifestyle issues, whilst the school caters for their specific educational needs. ROC’s support has been focused on the Bairnsdale Academy that was established in 2010. Bairnsdale is in the Gippsland area of Victoria, close to the location of the Company’s BMG asset.