Bannister Bennell becoming a role model in Laverton
Bannister Bennell is a young man with a real desire to see positive change in his community. He grew up in the Wheatbelt town of Brookton and has a wife and three young daughters aged 12, 10 and 2.
Bannister spent 14 years working in the mining industry as a crane operator and also attained a Certificate 4 training qualification, enabling him to train other staff to use this equipment. He became an indigenous role model in the industry and was well respected.
But after 14 years working fly in fly out and being away from his family Bannister decided it was time for a change, so he started to look for other options. He initially wanted to get into youth work, but had also noticed that there was a real lack of indigenous faces in the aquatic industry, so looked at the options for becoming a lifeguard or pool operator.
“My kids love swimming during the summer and I was just looking for somewhere to get in where I could make a difference to youth” Bannister says.
Some native title funding was available for the family group Bannister belongs to so he approached the organisers to see if they would fund his completion of a pool operations course. They said they would cover it so Bannister enrolled and began his studies, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing!
“Knowing the funding was there gave me a boost to take the step and move forward, but then when I’d almost completed the course and was looking to start my practical training they came back to me and said the funds wouldn’t be coming through.”
Bannister contacted Royal Life Saving and our training department agreed to assist him by funding the course as part of our community development projects. This allowed Bannister to complete both the theoretical and practical components of the training and become a qualified pool operator.
It wasn’t long before Bannister was being “head hunted” by several local WA regional aquatic centres. “I was handed a couple of part-time contract offers from aquatic centres at Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, but then I heard that the Laverton Shire was looking for a full-time pool operator. When I contacted them they told me that applications closed in two hours time so I quickly got my resume and application together. I wasn’t hopeful because they said they had pretty much already decided who was going to get the job, but the next day they called me for an interview and I ended up being chosen for the role.”
Laverton is a remote community about 400kms east of Kalgoorlie, and the closest neighbouring town is Leanora which is 120 kms away. Bannister started work at the Laverton Aquatic Centre in September this year as a solo pool operator and is really enjoying it. “It’s been great getting to know all the local kids around the town. Before I did this training I really wanted to do youth work, and now I get to do a bit of that too as I work with the local kids through the swimming pool. The locals are also happy to see an indigenous face here and I get a lot of respect from them which is great.”
Bannister hopes that other indigenous people will be encouraged by his story. “A lot of indigenous people think they can’t do things that they see mostly being done by non-indigenous people, but I’d tell them they’re stopping themselves and they can actually do anything if they put their mind to it.”