By Kate Bonsack
ORGANISING a belly dancer to dance at an Altona Meadows aged care facility has won two girls from Altona North an award.
Valbona Mehmedi and Emma Fonua, who were Bayside Secondary College Year 12 students last year, won the Hobsons Bay Local Learning and Employment Network Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) award at the Western Youth Futures Industry and Education Awards last Thursday in St Albans.
They received the award for entertaining the residents at St George’s Aged Care with a belly dancer and other activities, such as painting the nails of elderly women.
Had it not been for their secondary college offering VCAL – an alternative to the Victorian Certificate of Education – the girls would have finished school after Year 10 and never have had the opportunity of winning the award.
“Emma and I didn’t like school, but doing VCAL was different to normal school work and we still got our Year 12 certificate out of it, and a certificate II in Community Services,” Ms Valbona said.
The community services certificate was in aged care and a requirement for the certificate was for them to volunteer in an aged care facility and provide activities to the residents.
“We knew of a belly dancer who worked in nursing homes, so we asked her if she would volunteer some time for us,” Ms Valbona said.
“They (the residents) loved it.
“The belly dancer gave them instruments to play and they were up on their feet dancing around.”
Ms Valbona and Emma said they had wanted to undertake a certificate in youth work through the VCAL program, but because it wasn’t on offer they chose aged care as the next best thing.
The girls now study youth work at Victoria University.
