My past 12 months as the new General Manager of the Australia Program for World Vision has been an exciting time for me to reconnect with the development agenda here at home.

I moved to the Australia Program after nine years working globally for World Vision International and am fortunate to now be working on home soil with a great team of committed staff and project partners. I have travelled across the country to various Indigenous communities and am continually impressed by the strength of Indigenous knowledge, skills and cultural heritage.

I’ve heard from our Indigenous partners how the program is valued and making a difference in their communities. Having reviewed our past three years of work under the previous Australia Program 2009-2011 Strategy, we are now well into refining our new plan that will be guiding our work over the next three years.

Based on evidence of positive change in communities that is emerging from our projects, and at the request of our Indigenous partners for ongoing and greater collaboration, we will be expanding our support in Australia. This expansion is always driven from our Indigenous partners, and doing so acknowledges our commitment to supporting Indigenous people to lead the lives that they value.

The 2011 report “Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2011” shows that while there has been narrowing of gaps in some Indigenous socioeconomic indicators in several there has been a decline.

Therefore there is clearly a mandate for even greater collaboration on overcoming Indigenous disadvantage, and we have found that the Australian Government is increasingly committed to partnering with agencies like ours. To support enabling environments for Indigenous Australians to create their own strong and positive futures, and provide exciting opportunities for strengthened and new modes of support in more areas of Australia.

For example, the achievement of our Sydney Young Mob projects – led and managed by Indigenous Australians, has potential to be either incorporated into our other project work around Australia, or replicated as a stand-alone project in other urban areas.

The Young Mob project, as you may have read in previous editions of Linking Hands, has made a huge difference to the confidence and self-value of many young Indigenous Australians: empowering them to bring their valuable cultural knowledge into mainstream society.

Here at the Australia Program, we will be continuing to learn from and build upon such successes as we guide our expanded program, and I look forward to reporting back on this journey.