Decade-long partnership provides ongoing support to mining communities
(L to R) Peter Dowling, BMA, Bryan Doherty and Tony Devlin, Moneycare. (Photo supplied by Moneycare)
A unique partnership between The Salvation Army and a major mining company is celebrating 10 years of supporting Central Queensland communities with financial counselling and money management education.
The BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) Community Partnerships Program has funded the employment of a Salvation Army Moneycare financial counsellor since 2002. Recently, another three-year agreement was signed for the program to continue.
“The pressures of living in rural and resource communities across Central Queensland are real from a cost perspective,” says BMA’s Head of External Affairs, Vincent Cosgrove.
“What we’ve continued to deliver over our 10-year partnership with The Salvation Army is provide real financial counselling and support to those in need.”
As well as one-on-one financial counselling, The Salvation Army delivers a range of money management education programs in local high schools, Indigenous communities, and within the mining workforce. These educate people on how to best manage their own personal financial situation. The programs cover topics such as budgeting and financial literacy, creating and awareness of financial issues such as costs of borrowing, the cost of living and the benefits of saving and managing money well.
Head of Moneycare, Tony Devlin, says the partnership allows The Salvation Army to have a presence in the communities of Central Queensland where services for people in need are scarce.
“The BMA partnership allows us to help people who are in financial difficulty and crisis in Central Queensland,” he says. “Without this funding we couldn’t be out there doing this work.”
Over the past 10 years, the BMA-Salvation Army partnership has also delivered vital services to help those affected by drought, the global financial crisis and the 2008 and 2010-11 floods.
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