FIM Objectives and Outcomes

"Taking the Fear Out of Money for Cape York Indigenous Communities”
Wayne Beale FIM Project Manager

Objectives

• Develop the capacity of families and individuals to effectively manage income to achieve improved living standards;

• Engage interested family groups in income management processes, assist participants to identify and discharge responsibilities to each other and to their communities;

• Investigate and develop group purchasing arrangements to source and provide access to quality, affordable household goods and services and small business plant and equipment, including transport and communications;

• Provide information and recommendations to Federal and State Government bodies and other relevant organisations to assist in improving service delivery in remote Aboriginal communities and relevant to replicating the project elsewhere if it proves successful

Outcomes

• Participant debt situations are stabilised and living costs covered better through implementing budget plans via the FIM system.

• Spending on food has increased while spending on alcohol or gambling has decreased.

• Many people have been helped to access correct Centrelink entitlements.

• Stopped frequent power and phone disconnections and reconnection fees.

• Reduced bill-paying costs (people were paying up to $20 a time to ‘wire’ money to third parties, or buying money orders – now use Bpay or internet via FIM Office)

• Scores of beds, mattresses, fridges, freezers and washing machines have been purchased from savings, which, together with establishment of nutrition and pharmacy accounts (including negotiating cashless payment systems with local retailers and pharmacist) are contributing to better physical health.

• Many leisure goods purchased (TVs, DVDs, CD players), which, together with new furniture purchased, are contributing to families spending more time together at home.

• Some families have purchased cars and boats enabling them to take families out bush and to go fishing.

• Effective debt management assistance and negotiation with the several Cape store owners has stopped spiralling ‘book-up’ debts.

• Old people report feeling safer as being in FIM is now an acceptable excuse to avoid being ‘humbugged’.

• Many participants report reduction in stress and conflict and increased feelings of control over their lives, contributing to better mental health and well-being.

• Many young people are contributing to household expenses for the first time, plus saving for and buying their own leisure goods – some young couples are also saving to move into own home.

• CDEP workers, managers and employers such as Comalco report better motivation to work as they can see material benefits from doing so. Others report increased motivation to engage in training or further study for better jobs.

• Teachers report children of FIM participants now come to school properly fed, having had a good night’s sleep, and with lunches. Attendance rates are also improving.

• Some FIM participants have been referred to business hubs (and vice versa) where they have been assisted to access loans for small business start-ups, using FIM to ensure automatic repayments.

• Some FIM participants in Mossman have been helped to migrate to using bank accounts

• Although coping with visitors and unexpected crises can still throw budgets out, participants are more likely to have food stocks or savings to draw upon than before joining FIM.

• There is a general change in orientation from daily survival and ‘getting by’, to planning for the future and ‘getting ahead’.

• In Hopevale, a family is putting aside money each week to save a deposit to build a home on traditional land to assist them to further develop an already successful tourism venture.

• A mother & her adult son in Aurukun took out a joint NAB personal loan for $6000 to buy furniture for their two houses last November. Early September 2006 they made their last payment and closed the account. The mother made her payments from her Centrelink money & the son from his CDEP wage. They paid off the loan in less than one year.