Cowboys House – empowering youth for a positive future
Recently, a team from Variety Queensland got to visit NRL Cowboys House in Townsville to see how Variety’s support is positively impacting the lives of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
Pictured L-R: Catherine Spencer (Cowboys Community Foundation), Rochelle Jones (NRL Cowboys House General Manager), Raelene Frantz-Davis (NRL Cowboys House), Sam Fyfe (Variety Board Member), and Viv Coleman (Variety Board Chair).
NRL Cowboys House is a boarding facility for Indigenous students from some of Australia’s most remote and geographically disadvantaged communities, who come to Townsville to attend partner schools. But Cowboys House provides so much more than accommodation, truly offering a holistic wraparound model of care, supported by an incredible team of dedicated staff – 80% of whom are Indigenous themselves.
When the students come here, they often have some catching up to do. Rochelle Jones, General Manager of NRL Cowboys House, explains that many students struggle as they can be 2, 3, 4 or even 5 years behind their peers. Cowboys House ensures students can get on an equal playing field, with an opportunity to excel in every way, through academic outcomes, health and wellbeing, practical needs such as MyGov accounts and driver’s licenses, cultural activities, work readiness – and so much more.
Cultural programs have a big part to play at Cowboys House.
“They have to move away from home and family which is a very big challenge,” Rochelle explains. “They graduate school, and they graduate as confident young people – and they’re ready for employment. So, I feel that pride their family and they have in themselves – and the opportunity to make change for family, and our country, really.”
Variety helps fund the girls Learning Centre, where we got to meet many of the students. We bumped into Pia, who started at Cowboys House five years ago. Pia shared some of her dreams and aspirations with us: “I play rugby league and rugby union. I’m designing our NAIDOC shirt at school. After school, I want to be a mechanic – diesel fitting. I’m going to start my school-based apprenticeship next term.”
Meeting Pia.
Along with pride, another word Rochelle likes to use is confidence. “Once you feel like you’re a successful learner, your confidence grows, and you have hope that your future will be bright and one you’ve chosen to be a part of.”
A big focus at Cowboys House is this transition from school to working life. “That’s the next part of our journey, is once students do graduate our transition team works with them to secure employment and also housing,” Rochelle shares. “With the housing crisis and limited accommodation, we will work with them, so they get a rental history and support to be independent down the track with their own rental.”
Study time in the Learning Centre.
The Variety team joined the girls for dinner, where we got to hear many more stories. This year, Cowboys House has students from 29 communities. Almost all the girls come from the Top End, especially the Torres Strait Islands. Some miss home and living on the land. Others have taken to living in Townsville, enjoying access to the internet and all the other things they may not have back home. A group of students are planning to head to the mall after dinner to do some shopping.
At dinner, we enjoyed the amazing hospitality of the staff and students of Cowboys House.
What the students all have in common is generosity, kindness, resilience and wisdom. They ask after the Variety team – our names, why we’re here, where we come from. It’s no wonder the students go on to become advocates of change in the partner schools. Wherever they go, they are positively impacting the lives of others.
It is this big heartedness that Rochelle highlights at the centre of Variety: “I just think the fact that the heart is there…the heart is what we’re about with Cowboys House. Our values really align.”
Big thanks to the team at NRL Cowboys House for making us feel so welcome. Variety Queensland is truly proud to be partners of Cowboys House!
