A senior delegation of Australian Aboriginal leaders may have left Chicago Saturday, but they took a piece of Austin home with them.
From Oct. 7 to 14, a group of 11 Aborigines focused their week-long Chicago visit on learning about manufacturing education in the city. They plan to carry over aspects of Chicago’s manufacturing-related programs to their own community in Australia, which has a large demand for mining and gas-related jobs.
The delegation spent much of their trip at Austin Polytechnical Academy, 231 N. Pine, which partners with more than 65 local companies to prepare students for leadership in advanced manufacturing and related sectors.
“Austin Polytech is part of the effort to modernize what it really takes to get young people on track to access the large amount of careers in manufacturing,” said Erica Swinney, the Center for Labor and Community Research’s career and community program director for Austin Polytech.
Many mining companies in Australia hire outside employees from China and other countries for work, while “just a mile away you have a large Aboriginal community that is totally disassociated from the local economic structure,” Swinney said.
Swinney said there are “massive developments” underway in the mining and gas industries in Australia.
But, she said, “There’s no pathway for the Aborigines to get these jobs that are in huge demand a couple miles down the road.”
Swinney said this is because the Aboriginal people have long been marginalized in their country.
“They weren’t even considered citizens or counted as part of the census until the 1960s.”
She said there is still a struggle for the Aborigines to have access to the “most basic resources.”
“Across the board they are underserved,” Swinney said.
“The Aborigines are 2 percent of the population but represent 60 percent of the prison population in Australia,” she said. “There are some currents that are obviously very similar here in Austin.”
Dan Swinney, executive director of Center for Labor and Community Research, helped inspire the delegation’s visit after his trip to Australia in April, where he did a series of talks and presentations across the country on the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council and Austin Polytech, she said.
“That really struck a nerve with a lot of different groups,” Erica Swinney said.
Peter Botsman, of the Indigenous Stock Exchange, set up the delegation’s visit.
“He was really crucial in talking with some of the Aboriginal elders that he worked with that this might be something useful for their community,” she said.
“They were really intrigued as well and said, ‘Hey, let’s go over and check it out.’”
Last Wednesday, the delegation attended a Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council meeting.
“We had businesses, labor and government leaders talking about issues in manufacturing and how to modernize the skill education system that we have,” Erica Swinney said.
“I heard a lot of great feedback from (the delegation) on that,”
Chaseley Walker, a junior in high school and the youngest member of the delegation, shadowed students at Austin Polytech on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Right away she was like, ‘wow this would be really useful for me,’” Erica Swinney said.
Chaseley is interested in being a diesel mechanic — a huge need for her community – but there aren’t education programs that match that need, she said.
She wants to apply the skills and ideas she learned while in Chicago in her hometown in Australia, so she can “make a change to the community.”
On Thursday, the delegation met with Austin residents for a panel discussion sponsored by Austin Coming Together at El Palais Bu-Sche’, 4628 W. Washington Blvd.
They ended the night with a musical concert performed by Bennett Walker, one of the elder Aboriginal leaders and Chaseley’s grandfather.
Amarachuku Enyia, executive director of Austin Coming Together, said the discussion with the delegation was a great opportunity for Austin residents.
“It’s not every day that you can have a cross-cultural dialogue,” she said.