BTTB is privileged to be an honorary member of North Palm Beach Surf Life Saving Club, the iconic club known to millions worldwide as the location of Summer Bay's very own SLSC. We caught up with Club Captain Paul O'Keefe to see whats going down at our local club.
Everyone know the main purpose of a Surf Life Saving Club - to facilitate and educate lifesavers in order to provide a safe environment for the beaches of Australia.
However North Palm Beach frequently goes that extra mile. Just like its Summer Bay counterpart, the guys at North Palmy provide community projects for the not only the surrounding area, but also the other side of the country! We're pleased to bring you some exciting news on their latest project.
'Outback Meets the Beach', has been in development for 2 years and starts this week. This exciting scheme will see 12 indigenous teenagers (6 boys and 6 girls from the ages of 14-19) and 3 elders, from a remote outback community near Kakadu in the Northern Territory, go to stay at North Palmy SLSC for 2 weeks.
The project has 2 main objectives:
1. To get black and white teenagers meeting each other, forming friendships and learning from each other.
2. To teach the indigenous kids valuable skills such as First Aid, Boating Skills and Tour Guiding, in order to help secure them a brighter future.
Later on in the year, 12 of the kids from North Palmy SLSC will travel to the Northern Territory to return the visit. During their 2 week stay they will learn various indigenous skills, such as hunting Kangaroo and Turtle, making didgeridoos, and learning Aboriginal customs.
Many famous Australians are helping with the initiative, including five times Olympic gold medallist Ian Thorpe's charity foundation 'Fountain For Youth'. Ian does a lot of work with Aboriginal kids in the Northern Territory, and has been kind enough to personally fund the expenses of air travel etc. for all the kids involved in the scheme.
They are hoping that the pilot project will eventually be utitlised by other Surf Clubs around the country.
We hope to bring you more news on the project in the next couple of weeks!