Paul Holmes- Director- Kepal Building Services

Kepal Building Services was started originally in Shepparton over 20 years ago.

Predominantly all we do is government work and we do work for Aboriginal housing, community housing, common equity and Haven Home Safe.

The business has grown over the last 18 months to two years.

The major growth has been through the stimulus program through Homes Victoria.

So with that continuing on, it gives us the chance to grow and develop this business, allowing us to employ more country and regional and local people.

It has been quite hard for everybody throughout the COVID period, but at least we’ve been able to give them something back.

So now, you know, when you drive around town and everything, you can see where the money has been spent and what the government has been doing to help at regional Victoria and to makes people feel better.

Ben Carr-Project Manager- ARKit

With building the social housing projects here in the factory we’re making these projects and products a lot quicker to get to the market.

So at the moment we are currently working on a number of sites across the state of Victoria ranging from Orbost, Mildura, Warrnambool, Colac, Portland.

I’ve been working with Homes Victoria with these projects for the last two years.

It’s been a great collaborative process, talking through design and construction.

So there is a number of benefits in going with the pre-fab construction techniques for housing.

They include a better quality control, having everything built in-house, not having to deal with weather delays you would have in a conventional build.

Ensuring that when the buildings do leave to these regional sites, they can be as completed as possible.

So knowing that these units that we’ve been building are going to the social housing sector gives us a good sense of pride that we’re providing a safe, warm, comfortable environment for the people who are really in need of these units.

It makes coming to work that little bit better, a bot of pep in your step knowing that you are giving back to the community and you are making someone feel safe.

Damien Carmody- Manager- YMCA ReBuild

YMCA is a social enterprise.

We work with young men and women who have been involved in the criminal justice system.

We are providing employment and trade skills to the young guys while they are incarcerated and also offer them employment working with commercial builders as soon as they are released.

The standard recidivism rate in Victoria is 50% and for participants who have come through our program is 5%.

We work with young guys, we work with disadvantaged youth who have amazing skills and ability, they just need to be harnessed.

For YMCA ReBuild to work with Homes Victoria and Icon, it’s an amazing opportunity for us to improve our skills and increase our capacity and for our young guys to work on a site that hopefully they are going to end up on in the next six months or so.

Nicole Donnison- Social Sustainability Manager- ICON

The social procurement framework of government has been game changing in how we deliver projects in particular major projects in Victoria.

Alistair Munro- Construction Manager- ICON

There’s been a real impotence put forward regarding social procurement and that’s creating both short term and long term benefit from a jobs and employment perspective and also creating fantastic outcomes for our projects.

Chris Johnson- Key Client Account Executive- RAW Group
There was a gap within the labour hire and within the industry for Aboriginal people and Aboriginal people on site.

We know our people within the indigenous community and being able to invest back into those communities, that’s actually bringing community wealth and family wealth back into the community and really making sure that they feel as belonging.

Nicole Donnison- Social Sustainability Manager- ICON

Our procurement opportunities are actually potentially changing people’s lives or they are setting a pathway for people to take a different course in their life. Be given opportunity and dignity of work that perhaps they weren’t afforded previously.

Gary Mongta- Director of Construction- Monero Constructions

To be working on these Victorian Government projects and Homes Victoria projects is fantastic.

To be part of the build, we are giving back to the Indigenous community that can benefit from these projects.

I think it’s just giving people the opportunity, giving them a start and indigenous businesses are no different to any other business out there.