RDA Wheatbelt Noongar Enterprise Evaluation Yr 4

The extension of Department of Social Services (DSS) funding for the Noongar Enterprise Development Support (NEDS) program into a fourth year has enabled the program to further build on the early development of Aboriginal businesses and positive outcomes generated in the initial three year period of funding. Despite COVID continuing to have a constraining effect on delivery of the program, NEDS Project Officer, Mr Robert Miles, who assumed project delivery for both Ballardong and Yued Country, continued to work with existing clients as well as sign on new clients and supporting existing and new social enterprises. 

 

Right up to the final month of the funding extension, the NEDS program continued to proactively support clients and enterprises and put in place strategies alongside alternative options to ensure ongoing mentoring and development assistance into the future. 

 

At its conclusion, Regional Development Australia (RDA) Wheatbelt is confident that the NEDS program will leave an ongoing legacy that has revealed a previously unexplored source of business and enterprise aspirations within the Wheatbelt’s Aboriginal population. Correspondingly, RDA Wheatbelt believes that the program has also left Aboriginal clients a legacy of self and community empowerment. As Ms. Madeline Anderson observed in the previous evaluation, the NEDS program support gave her “…permission to dream”.       

 

Download the NEDS fourth and final year evaluation 2022