Adelle Hartley wrote: Some additional background information.
Firstly, there are TWO organisations involved; Centrelink and DEWR (Dept of Employment and Workplace Relations). Basically, for the first year, the unemplored, etc get mucked around by Centrelink. After that, they get screwed by DEWR, who pays "Job Network Members" to assist/hassle[1] them, plus there are CWC (Community Work Coordinators, who provided WFD (Work for The Dole) programs. > "Work for the Dole is about helping job seekers improve their employment > prospects by providing opportunities for work experience. Communities are > involving job seekers in local projects providing facilities and services of > value to the community." WFWD's are basically courses that are suppossed to upskills the unemployed to enable them to get work, but commonly their stated purpose is to install regularity, responsible attitude, etc, etc, etc. In short, they are basically a shit fight. Very much underfunded and exploited by the organisation running them. It would be far better to step back and look at the Mutual Obligation opportunities, which basically means that you have to do something for so many hours to meet your mutual obligation. Under mutual obligation, youcan do a whole pile of different activities, including "self education". http://www.jobsearch.gov.au/ jobs comedy, http://www.workplace.gov.au/ Actually, just try a google search on stuff like mutual obligation, etc, etc. Paka-Poo is a polite description. > Open source development sounds valuable to the community. > > The main hurdle would be public liability insurance*. I think you now have to look at $10 million public liability. Basically, you don't want to enter the CWC, JNM, etc, shitfight. You just want to have/establish a community organisation that has $10M pulic liability, where people can "go" (login-logout?) and do some counted hours to meet their mutual obligation hours. Basically, they have to do 8 hours/week average for it to be of any benefit. > If there's already an appropriate organisation that I can officially > "volunteer" for, then I would appreciate being pointed in the right > direction. If not, I would be interested in helping to start one (and > possibly being its first volunteer/participant). Go back and look at the Mutual Obligation, especially self education, then see if you can get to Granville TAFE and do one of Geoff's courses, or to any TAFE and do any course. If you are getting Newstart, you just need to rock up with your fortnightly form, complete the enrollment and flash your fortnightly form along with your enrollment at the (PAYE ERE) desk (no cash accepted) and you are in. http://www.tafensw.edu.au/ and look under campuses and institutes to see what your local TAFE offers. Be aware of that wonderful thing called Statement of Attainment in "some field or other" that basically lets you do any subject (provided you meet pre-recs) in the field, (if it isn't tied to apprentice courses, etc). Research now, start telephoning on Monday. > *The other hurdle would be reams of beaurecratic paper work as required by > Centrelink, but you could always get some work-for-the-dole person to take > care of that. ROFL, um, basically 80% of WFD people don't want to be there, don't give a rat's arse (to be exceedingly polite), spend most of their time wasting your time, think it is fun to break everything, piss in the coffee, think that their mum is stick picking up after them, etc [1] After a while, it becomes clearer that the role of this system is to "breach" unemployed people, etc so the government can take money off them. -- Terry Collins {:-)}}} email: terryc at woa.com.au www: http://www.woa.com.au Wombat Outdoor Adventures <Bicycles, Computers, GIS, Printing, Publishing> "People without trees are like fish without clean water" -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
