Behind the scenes at
WYNDHAM CITY Jon Machler
Youth Cultural Development Officer
Jon Machler is the Youth Cultural Development Officer at Wyndham City Youth Services. He shares what he does in his role and what he loves most about it. Tell me about your role? Youth Services provide a range of different programs, events and projects for young people aged between 12 to 25. We also have holiday programs to be able to introduce young people to our services and eventually give them access to counselling and that kind of stuff. My role involves working with young people from a newly arrived background and just really providing them with ways to settle more comfortably in the Wyndham area. Some of them are refugees, some of them are migrants,
and being able to provide them access to our services and being sensitive to their culture as well is something that’s really important.
How many young people do you support on a regular basis? In my role itself, I’m dealing with anything from 30 up to 100 people each week.
quite rewarding. Just to see young people graduate through programs, get themselves jobs, pick up really great skills, set themselves up and sometimes just turning people around – some people are really disengaged and getting them involved in some of our programs means they can change their lives.
Why is this work important? I think the most important part is just trying to connect communities together. There’s so many diverse communities out there and people may not understand each other, so having someone there to create those networks and get them to know a little bit more about each other I feel is a really important role.
What do you enjoy most about your position? I just love doing what I do. Being able to come into work and knowing you’re doing something good for the community, that I live in as well, is
“I just love doing what I do. Being able to come into work and knowing you’re doing something good for the community, that I live in as well, is quite rewarding.”
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