WELA Community Centre

WELA Mission
The Wyndham Early Learning Activity Centre (WELA) works in partnership with other child agencies, schools and parents in developing the self-esteem of kids at risk of poor education outcomes. It raises the expectations of parents and the community about the achievement levels of all students, supports parents in their active engagement in their children’s education and facilitates strong partnership agreements with schools and parents.

WELA believes that promoting healthy families creates healthy kids. If the cycle of disadvantage is broken so that children get an opportunity to live in strong supportive families where there are positive male and female role model figures and where education and health are valued, their future prospects are likely to be far more positive than those children who grow up surrounded by chaos and dysfunction. The whole community of Wyndham benefits from strong and healthy kids.

Over the nine years WELA has been in operation we have succeeded in supporting Wyndham and outlying community families using the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) that aims to improve the physical health and wellbeing of Wyndham children and their readiness for school, so that the whole family is school ready when children present on their first day.

WELA History
WELA started in 2005 as a young Aboriginal Mum’s group who felt their needs were not being met by both Government and Non-Government services in town. In 2006 WELA, in partnership with Joorook Ngarni Aboriginal Corporation, became a Community for Children (C4C) pilot site as a Community partner with Save the Children and funded by the Liberal, Government of the day. Under the Liberal party the Community for Children (C4C) was a well-funded grass root program that enabled remote communities to build the individuals within each community to lean working towards closing the Gap.

In late 2009 WELA became incorporated “Wyndham Early Learning Activity (WELA) Incorporation”, We have been very lucky that in 2007 we moved into an old transportable building and shed at the back of the Wyndham District High School and had a peppercorn lease for 12 years.
In 2009 we lobbied the Hon Gary Gray, Office of Northern Australia, with the idea of building a new Centre on crown land with the Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley project leading the building. As you can imagine, we were very happy to be named in the Federal Government’s and Regional Development package for the allocation of $1.6 million for a new WELA Centre.