Boys from the Bush - about choices

 Boys from the Bush Projects is a not-for-profit organisation made up of professional practitioners committed to improving the lives of some of the most disadvantaged people in our country - young unemployed at-risk Indigenous people from remote communities not responding to standards forms of intervention.

Remote Aboriginal communities are often characterised by outrageous levels of alcohol consumption and drunken violence, a large and growing drug problem amongst the youth, high unemployment, mass idleness and boredom, parental neglect, overcrowded housing, poor diets, offending behaviour, and the failure of formal education. All of which has resulted in abject poverty, extremely poor physical and mental health, loss of dignity, levels of ignorance comparable to Third World victims, and extremely high levels of incarceration and suicide.

Real work is the key to helping many of these young people. Real work not only provides income, it provides equity, purpose, identity and the structure of time and place. Real work helps in our transition from childhood to adulthood. Through work we begin to develop maturity and responsible behaviour.

The challenge we face is that the majority of young people in some remote communities have serious behavioural problems causing real barriers to their employment. Some of these behavioural problems stem from congenital or acquired brain damage, while others are the result of two or more generations of passive welfare dependency, the breakdown of social norms, law and order, discipline and education. Other behaviours are simply the natural expressions of confused and restless youth trying to find their place in the world. These young people are the focus of Boys from the Bush Projects.