Building Future

Written by  Maddy Shellabear

Sitting outside North Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club looking at Lockie, it’s hard to believe someone so young could have started a life changing charity.

Lockie is a 20-year-old former Christ Church Grammar student who now focuses all his time on the charity he started in 2007, called the Indigenous Communities Education Appeal (ICEA).

The purpose of the charity is to increase school attendance in remote areas in the Kimberley and provides an aid for young aboriginal children, giving them the chance to make a better life for themselves.

A representative from each school encourages the school to get involved in the cause, while also making the school aware of the Aboriginal communities and their culture.

Mentoring the young

These representatives are put into categories: School Marja mob, which are representatives from the supporting schools, Social Marja mob, who are people that meet socially to discus what they can do to help and the Mentor Marja Mob, which consists of school leavers who mentor the younger children.

It is a non-profit organisation that hosts a series of events and functions, to raise money for the Aboriginal communities.

A recent event was held down at the North Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club, which is a large supporter and contributor to the ICEA foundation.

It was a surf competition that had over 150 children involved, with a large group of older kids helping out and making sure everything ran smoothly on the day.

“Lockie is an inspiration to all those kids out there, proving that anyone can make a difference,” says  North Cottesloe surf club president Craig Smith-Gander.

“We are all very proud of him and know that he will go far with his attitude and ambition.”

This was just one of the many events ICEA hosts every year and each one is more successful than the next, with many more children starting to get involved and make a difference.

“It's great to know you’re making a difference to someone’s life,” says Lockie.

“I couldn’t have got this far without all the support from my friends and family.”

Art exhibition

Another event he has up and coming is the “Gjinanging” art exhibition, which will be held at the Indigenous art gallery in the Merenda gallery of fine art.

The word “Gjinanging” means ‘identifying word for value’ and the theme is Australia’s land, Culture and People which has a close relationship with Lockie 's overall theme.

Lockie also supports many other causes with similar goals such as ‘Generation One’, which aims to bring Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people together as one generation.

Another of his causes is National Reconciliation Week, which focuses on strengthening the relationship between the generations.

With planning and help from his parents Lockie began to achieve his goals step by step and with the encouragement from his close friends and family, he soon had the foundation up and running.

Mixing the generations

“I don’t want a narrow age group, I am obviously directing the information more towards the younger generation so they become aware of it, but I also need the older generations support,” said Lockie.

But getting the foundation up and running wasn’t easy.

He talks about how he struggled to raise enough funds and support to get the foundation going in the beginning.

“Once we began to publicise the foundation and started to develop some ideas for the fundraisers it became a lot easier,” he said

“Then we started getting some sponsors on board and I cannot stress enough that this foundation wouldn’t still be running if it wasn’t for their amazing support.”

Sponsors vital

Some of the main sponsors of the ICEA foundation are the North Cottesloe Surf Club, Oz Zone (a clothing brand started by one of Lockie’s friends) and Star Surf as well as a number of schools and football clubs.

He also has a number of partners who support his cause including, Shell Australia, KFC, Dorsogna, Nexus Freight, Red Hot Design and Ordnexia.

Each of these partners has a specific role in helping the foundation with food supplies for functions and fundraising to earn enough money to put on charity events.

KFC sponsor the footballs that are handed out to the aboriginal students who have 85 per cent school attendance.

Lockie  says rewarding the children for acts like this encourages them to keep participating in school and to keep learning.

He hopes the support will continue to grow as more people become aware of the foundation and realize what a great cause it is.

One of Lockie’s oldest friends, George Garnett, says Lockie will achieve much more as he gets older.

“This is definitely not all were going to see and hear from Lockie,” George said

“This kid is on to bigger and better things, there really is no stopping him. Lockie is continuously thinking of ways to better the foundation and aims to go up north as much as possible to check that his hard work is paying off.

He is also constantly thinking of new fundraising ideas, along with his Marja Mob supporters, which will get people interested and more involved.

“I just want people to be aware, that is all I ask for and if it means that children are getting a better life then I have nothing to lose, ” he says.

“Hopefully it can only get better from here.”