{"id":205,"date":"2010-09-02T21:54:03","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T11:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/?p=205"},"modified":"2015-02-23T16:05:39","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T06:05:39","slug":"outback-8-television-programme-channel-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/outback-8-television-programme-channel-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Outback 8 Television Programme – ABC 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately, quite often I am contacted by people desperately looking for rural experience for a teenager.\u00a0 I say unfortunately, because very often these are parents (mostly mothers) who are very worried about a son whose formal education is not going well.\u00a0 Sometimes I am contacted by other relatives (eg a grandparent) and sometimes by someone in the police force, going way beyond the call of duty, trying to help someone get back onto the straight and narrow.<\/p>\n

Where to send\u00a0these desperate enquirers for advice?\u00a0 They come from all over Australia and even other countries (U.S.A, Canada and England, for example).\u00a0 Of course rural businesses are just like any other\u00a0small business – most owners\/managers are\u00a0flat out carving out a living in what is not an easy business, and they simply don’t have the necessary time or resources to employ kids who\u00a0are more likely to need extra assistance and supervision, and more likely to have an attitude problem.\u00a0 And ultimately, if the teenager is not self-motivated to a reasonable degree, then it doesn’t matter how motivated the\u00a0concerned parent is – all the help in the world is more likely to be of no use.\u00a0\u00a0 That said – very often it is the kids with an over abundance of energy, who like doing rather than sitting around listening, that have a disastrous time at school but take to rural employment like ducks to water.<\/p>\n

There are some programmes to assist indigenous kids start a career in\u00a0the rural industry\u00a0 but as far as I know, there’s no programmes to help the non-indigenous.<\/p>\n

‘Outback 8’<\/a>\u00a0was originally screened on Channel 10 and it is being re-run on ABC 3 (kids channel)\u00a0at present – weeknights at 6.30pm.\u00a0 As I’m working then I haven’t seen every episode but what I have is impressive (especially since I very rarely watch\u00a0‘reality’ shows).\u00a0 I wish there were intensive, short-term training programmes like what is shown on Outback 8\u00a0running all year round in every state (and territory) in Australia.\u00a0 It’s an ideal way for kids to test out a career handling livestock.\u00a0 Four of the kids in ‘Outback 8’ were from the U.K. and the other four\u00a0from various parts of\u00a0Australia – and all are from diverse backgrounds and with diverse interests – from boxing to violin playing and surfing.\u00a0\u00a0They are aged\u00a0from 12 to 14.\u00a0 \u00a0Sulky attitudes and can’t-do beliefs are slowly\u00a0overcome by impressively patient and skilled instructors – Ingrid O’Neill (a horsewoman from a property near Richmond, north Qld) and Dave Manchon (from the Gold Coast – a journalist, surfer and horseman with the lead role in the Australian Outback Spectacular).\u00a0\u00a0 The four weeks of training filmed in ‘Outback 8’ took place at the Longreach Pastoral College.\u00a0 These young teenagers learned to ride and look after horses, and muster sheep and cattle and work them in the yards.\u00a0 Above all they learned to work as a team, get along with others, and to never give up.<\/p>\n

If only there was a training programme like\u00a0this to recommend to worried parents!\u00a0 It wouldn’t be cheap to run, but infinitely cheaper for taxpayers than picking up the pieces later, when kids have run amok after years of not fitting in at school.<\/p>\n

This television programme has no doubt inspired a swag of young teenagers to head bush as soon as they are old enough.\u00a0 Decades ago many of the older generation commenced work on cattle stations when they were 14 (usually because school didn’t agree with them, or due to family circumstances – formal education was a luxury they couldn’t afford), however these days most rural employers don’t employ school leavers until they are at least 16 (for work place health & safety reasons, etc).\u00a0 Quite a few places are prepared to take keen students on for a few weeks of work experience, and pastoral companies employ\u00a0large numbers of unskilled staff at the commencement of every dry season (usually before Easter).\u00a0 And of course there are quite a few agricultural colleges spread across regional areas of Australia.\u00a0 Most specialise in specific avenues of agriculture which relate to the primary production activity taking place in the particular region.\u00a0 For example, Burdekin Ag. College has concentrated on farming (in particular cane farming and tropical horticulture) whereas Longreach Pastoral College has been known for concentrating on horsemanship, sheep and cattle handling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ‘Outback 8’ television series has inspired many kids to dream about living and working in the bush<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,8,15,217],"tags":[82,94,218],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4495,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/4495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}