SOCIAL enterprise Nadrasca and the Gippsland Line Upgrade have partnered to provide participants with a disability more opportunities for paid, meaningful work.
Nadrasca provides a range of services and employment for more than 400 people with a disability across 23 locations in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.
Among Nadrasca’s services is a supported employment service that employs more than 115 people with a disability.
This service, Nadrasca Industry, provides printing, packing and distribution services for the Gippsland Line Upgrade, delivering updates to letterboxes in the project area.
Participants recently worked 166 hours helping to distribute more than 4500 letters to residents along the Gippsland Line, between Nar Nar Goon and Longwarry East, for the Southern Brown Bandicoot Protection Program.
This year Nadrasca launched a new training and development program for supported employees, including three tiers of specialist training within its printing area.
Each year, the program will offer 16 supported employees the opportunity to undertake specialised printing training with a total of 656 hours being dedicated to this activity.
Nadrasca’s partnership with the Gippsland Line Upgrade provides ongoing additional work that will directly help it deliver these training programs, while also increasing awareness of the importance of providing opportunities for meaningful employment for people with disabilities.
They envisage the jobs generated from the Gippsland Line Upgrade will create well over 500 hours of social employment.
“With more than 100 supported employees currently working with us, Nadrasca recognises the incredible value in job creation for people with disabilities,” Nadrasca Industry chief operations manager Alison Wright said.
Brohdi Male, 22, will work directly on jobs associated with the Gippsland Line Upgrade, which will provide enormous value to his self-development.
Brohdi started Nadrasca’s school leavers program, My Life My Future, in 2019, and over the last three years has worked hard on developing his employment and general independent life skills.
Having recently transitioned to permanent, full-time supported employment at Nadrasca Industry, Brohdi was quick to put his hand up for the printing training program, where over the course of this year he will master the technical craft of commercial printing.
“The program at Nadrasca will let me practice my skills and I also get to learn how to be more independent at work as well as run some jobs by myself when I am ready,” he said.
The Gippsland Line Upgrade aims to enable trains every 40 minutes between Traralgon and Melbourne between the peaks and provide more reliable services on the Gippsland Line.
