Wongutha Stories Podcast

Welcome to the Wongutha Stories podcast series. This podcast series is hosted by current Wongutha students who yarn with former students of Wongutha about their stories, experiences, and education journeys. We hear about their experiences of Wongutha, their transition to work after school, and what strengths they draw from in achieving their goals. The design featured in the podcast image was part of exploring stories and young people's journeys from their communities to Wongutha. Led by Gaye Graham (teacher at Wongutha), a group of young people developed designs to represent their stories and journeys. These were then brought together by Elaine Chambers from Cultural Edge Designs to represent the stories of young people from Wongutha. This design is now used on the Wongutha school shirt as well as the representation of the podcast series. This podcast series is part of an ARC Linkage project 'Preparing Aboriginal students in remote communities for life beyond school' (administered at Curtin University). The team members of this project are Prof Rhonda Oliver (Curtin University), Dr Marnee Shay (the University of Queensland), Dr Tatiana Bogachenko (Curtin University), Dr Helen McCarthy (Curtin University), and an award winning writer and film maker Boori Monty Pryor (some of his famous books are Shake a Leg, Maybe Tomorrow, My Girragundji; films Wrong Kind of Black, Brown Paper Bag). This project aims to better prepare young Aboriginal adults as they transition from the VET (Vocational Education and Training) school to life beyond school, including into the workplace. We are grateful for the ongoing support from Shane Meyer and Brendan Franzone, Wongutha Principals in 2019-2021, and for the valuable contribution of Elizabeth Jackson, an English teacher of the young people doing the interviews. With series 1 out, we keep working on producing more series for you in the near future, so stay tuned!