WHO WE SUPPORT
Parent Infant Foundation of Australia (PIFA)
PIFA was the nominated charity from the first FIFI event in September 2007. Part of PIFA's (Parent and Infant Foundation of Australia) work, and the part that FIFI wanted to help fund, is their work with young aboriginal families and mothers in Redfern.
PIFA provide the mothers with knowledge essential for effective parenting- information that most mothers take for granted - such as nutritional advice, the importance of holding a baby and the benefits of breastfeeding. A lot of this basic knowledge has been lost through the stolen generation.
Studies clearly show that well funded prevention and early intervention programs provided in the earliest years of life improve adult incomes, prevent many physical and mental health disorders and reduce costs for services such as those for dealing with crime, unemployment, learning problems, treatments for substance abuse and mental disorders.
It costs $7000 to provide weekly visits to one family for a year. The funds raised in September is funding two families with intensive service which includes weekly home visiting and assistance and with early childhood education, group therapy and connecting with community supports for a full year.
Australian Indigenous Education Foundation (AIEF)
AIEF is a soon-to-be-launched non-profit charitable foundation with a focus on providing scholarships to Indigenous secondary school students to enrol at high quality boarding schools. It was previewed at a gathering hosted by Females in the Finance Industry (FiFi) on 1 May 2008.
AIEF has grown out of the success and learnings of the St Joseph's College Indigenous Fund (SJCIF) and the Indigenous education programme at St Joseph's College Hunters Hill in Sydney. This programme was described in the national media as "the nation's pacesetter in Indigenous scholarships" (The Australian 31 May 2008).
The aim of the St Joseph's College programme is to sustain around 40 Indigenous boys in boarding school each year. AIEF has been established to replicate, leverage and scale the success of the St Joseph's College Indigenous Fund to provide similar boarding school scholarships for Indigenous children at other high quality schools with a proven track-record in Indigenous education. Our initial target is to raise $5 million for boarding school scholarships for Indigenous girls, unlike the programme at St Joseph's College which is for Indigenous boys.
Autism Behavioural Invervention NSW (ABINSW)
Autism Behavioural Invervention NSW provides evidence based therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder and their families.
Autism Behavioural Intervention Association NSW (ABI) is a not for profit organization that provides autism specific intervention services for families with children that have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
ABI uses evidence based practices to empower families with the tools and strategies to successfully support their child's learning and development and integration into family and community settings.
ABI was established in 2006 to fill a gap in the ability for families to access services in the outer suburbs of Sydney and more specifically, access the evidence based behavioural intervention services which were otherwise only available through private service providers at a high cost to families.
ABI's services are largely funded by the NSW Government through the Department of Aging Disability and Home Care but only in respect of children under the age of 6 years old. ABI has provided services to over 120 families since 2006 and have funding available to provide services to a further 300 families over the coming 3 years.