Mitch undertakes community learning at TFL

Trees For Life is working with Pembroke School in a two-way project which sees one of Pembroke’s students gain hands-on experience in the workplace, and helps TFL out at the same time.

Every Wednesday afternoon, 18-year-old Mitch Davies travels from Pembroke to TFL’s Betty Westwood nursery in Brooklyn Park, and undertakes work as part of his Year 12 studies.

Under the recently introduced Community Learning Program, students can volunteer their time at various workplaces and are then assessed as part of their final results.

Mitch said one of his teachers suggested TFL as a possible workplace and he was accepted late in term one of the school year.

“Since then I’ve been learning just about everything … from propagating trees to grading them,” Mitch said.

As part of the community program, Mitch also volunteers his time as a badminton coach every Sunday.

“It can be pretty hard at times; we’ve got to always have evidence of the work we’re doing over a set amount of hours and we get assessed on everything. It’s a good program though and something different.”

The Community Learning Program is aimed at helping students to develop skills and knowledge, regardless of whether they choose to undertake further education and training, go to university, take on an apprenticeship or go straight into the workforce.

As for his future aims, Mitch has a love of screen printing and illustration and hopes to undertake a VET course in multimedia from next year.