Our learning support and mentoring programs in 90 Australian communities directly help children in need achieve their goals through education.
View all programs Work Inspiration inspires Thomas to choose a career in Engineering
“Prior to visiting Downer EDI Mining with the Work Inspiration program I had no idea what I wanted to be or study in senior school and University. Attending this program has literally and most likely changed the course and direction that I will take for the rest of my life and for that I am truly appreciative.”
For fourteen-year-old Thomas, a three-day visit to the head office of Downer EDI Mining as a Year 9 student gave him new direction and motivation for his education.
“This program has inspired me to now give great consideration to engineering as something that I may be interested to study in the future.
“I decided to do the program because I thought it would be a really good gateway into my future work. I was told it was a Work Inspiration program about mining, but I didn’t know anything until the first day. I thought it would be a really good opportunity because my mum is already pressuring me about what I want to do when you grow up.
“My favourite part was meeting new people and talking with all the staff. I enjoyed doing a presentation at the end about a chosen person’s career path. I also learnt so many different facts about mining.
After the three days, I didn’t want to leave Downer EDI Mining. The Work Inspiration program was just that inspiring. The thought of going back to school afterwards only made me want to study harder to get to where I want to be in life.
I do think everyone got a positive outcome or something good out of the program. I would recommend it to anyone.
“A positive outcome for me is that I think I know what I want to do when I grow up. All the staff that talked to us have helped heaps in putting me in the right direction because I had no idea what I wanted to be. Now I want to go down the path of engineering. And now that I know that I can focus on what I need to be doing to be an engineer and that’s a positive outcome for me.
“Before the Work Inspiration program, I hadn’t been thinking about engineering at all. I was worrying about thinking about a job, but I never went down the path of engineering or mining.
“Now I think I want to be a health and safety engineer. I talked to one of the health and safety engineers and he reminded me a lot of myself. He generally cares about people’s safety and wellbeing. He ran a little program about what a health and safety engineer does. It was only 10 minutes but a lot came out of it for me.
“I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who presented and participated in our program. We were provided with a great insight to an industry that I personally did not know much about and given some great gifts to take home to wear and use. My favourite being the shirt that I wore home on the train!
“All the staff were professional and informative and the facilities were most impressive. Overall it was an amazing experience. The people I interviewed were obviously hard at work but they closed their computer and talked to us. Everyone was really welcoming to the students. I loved it so much and I wish I could do it again.”