Port Students@AIME

AIME, or Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience, has a 13-year history of mentoring Indigenous students out of educational inequality across Australia. AIME provide university students as mentors to work with school students. The mentors help students to strengthen their literacy and numeracy skills in weekly tutor squads. They encourage self-belief and work hard to empower the individual, and “no shame at AIME” is the mantra they stand by.

AIME was introduced to Port School in semester 2 this year. Every Wednesday afternoon a small team of mentors work with our students, which also includes boys from our Mobile Classroom Program. Apart from the literacy and numeracy work, we also spend some time on fun activities as a way to break the ice. The most popular session was when we learnt to juggle and then to make our own set of juggling balls, using rice and balloons. As a group, we’ve also had the opportunity to attend four AIME program days at Murdoch University. We spend the day immersed in Indigenous cultural activities, fun challenges, team-building exercises, and exploring personal growth and leadership skills.

One of the highlights was the end of year presentation of AIME Hoodies to the top students this year. Congratulations go to Ishy, Jarome, Draydon, Tanesha, Marlene, Lionel, Josie, Latoya, Declan and Anika for their regular commitment and engagement with the AIME program.