By Charlene Gatt
IN 1986, the Westgate Baptist Church started up a small job creation project to tackle the high unemployment numbers in the West.
Today, the Westgate Community Initiatives Group is standing on its own two feet and has found employment for thousands of people across the West and in Melbourne.
Based in the West with offices in Footscray, Melton, Sunshine, St Albans and Werribee, WCIG has in recent times expanded its operations with new offices in Moonee Ponds, Dallas and Broadmeadows.
“In the early ’80s, there was a lot of disadvantage here,” said CEO Ron Miers, who was a pastor at the church at the time.
Running off a trust grant and free rent for the first few years, the group was able to flourish and by 1989, had opened up a hospitality training project through the Your Haven restaurant and the Laptop Cafe at the Footscray Swim Centre.
The group also started up Cleanable, a domestic cleaning, office and home maintenance business that created jobs for people with a mental illness.
Most recently, WCIG’s retail and manufacturing business Luvo was officially re-launched in August, offering a wide range of environmentally-friendly products for the home and body and employing 29 people who live with a mental illness.
The business took in more than $1.2 million over the 2010/11 financial year and also won Maribyrnong City Council’s MIRA award last year for Most Inclusive Business Practices.
Mr Miers, who has been part of WCIG for the past 19 years, said he was proud to see the group thrive after a quarter of a century.
“The statement of purpose was all about employment, training for employment and job creation – and it’s still the same,” he said.
“It’s not welfare … a lot of our staff, they see it as awakening the potential in people.”
