Bidyadanga community kids enjoy school holiday activities

Due to travel restrictions caused by COVID 19, Bidyadanga Pool Manager Bernie Egan has decided to spend some time in the remote community outside the pool season volunteering her time to run the July School Holiday Program. It’s caused a bit of excitement for the community’s children who keep asking “Bernie, when’s the pool open?” She’s had to let them know that it’s too cold to swim now and they’ll need to wait until September when the pool re-opens for the new season.

But that didn’t mean there was nothing to do over the recent holidays. A special school holiday program was put together combining art projects and some active and sports based programs. Co-ordinating with various agencies in the community, Karajarri Rangers, Nyangumarta Rangers, KRICs Youth Engagement Officer – Angelo Thomas, BACLG and WA Police, the program offered 16 activities over seven days and saw 496 kids participate.

Go for 2 and 5 and the PCYC provided some funds to ensure that healthy snacks and fruit were available during the activity times. A BBQ was also arranged for the Disco night that was held at the basketball court, and two movie nights at the Police Station saw kids sitting out under the stars watching a movie and eating air popped popcorn.

As always ball sports were a favourite with basketball and football drawing the biggest crowds. While for those kids who are less active there was painting and colouring. The local fire truck came out for a slip and slide, but the kids thought it was too cold for water based activities, even on a 30 degree day!

In the second week of the holidays a three-day on-country camp was held by the Karajarri Rangers, which is a favourite activity for the older community kids. There were also activities during this time for those children who remained in community.

Having a structured school holiday program in Bidyadanga means that the kids are not just wandering around, gives them somewhere to go and something to do, which leads to a decrease in anti-social behaviour. Bernie says it was a great two weeks! “It’s been rewarding to spend some time with the kids outside of the pool and its good for the kids to see me as more than just the pool manager. But next school holidays we will be back in the pool having even more fun!”

You can find out more about our remote aboriginal swimming pool program at the link below.