"Care" is the ingredient a global organisation hopes will help transform the troubled Apollo Estate into a beautiful neighbourhood its residents are proud of.
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Gawad Kalinga (meaning "give care" in Filipino) has chosen the East Dubbo estate to be its first Australian-based project and will meet with residents this week to hear their vision for their community and discuss ways to help them achieve it.
Gawad Kalinga Australia (GKA) director of domestic programs, Andrew Chalk, said the organisation aimed to tackle poverty by using a community development model that had proven successful in the Philippines and other countries.
"It started in the slums of northern Manilla where there was a high murder rate, it was a terrible place riddled with serious violence, now after ten years it's one of the safest areas in the Philippines," he said.
Mr Chalk, a Sydney-based lawyer who has worked with Aboriginal communities for nearly 30 years, said he discovered the movement "by accident" and felt the idea of helping people to help themselves and each other to develop their communities could work well in Australia.
GKA volunteers first travelled to Dubbo at the invitation of local elder 'Riverbank' Frank Doolan to begin building relations with the local community. Among the more tangible aims of the project, Mr Chalk said, would be helping Apollo's public housing residents achieve home ownership.
"One of the longer-term objectives for GKA in Apollo is to ensure people in public housing have the opportunity to own their own homes in a way they can be proud of them, look after them and be part of a safe place where neighbours worked together to support one another," he said.
"Nothing I've seen in Apollo suggests transformation is impossible. Many people in Apollo would be happy to work together, it's a matter of finding a starting point and working together on some small projects, initially.
"Ideas include doing up nature strips in front yards, landscaping their houses, getting crews together to help people who can't do their own gardens."
Mr Chalk said the program differed from others because there was "no exit strategy".
"When we commit to a strategy, it's a long-term project," he said. To date, the project had operated independently of government, Mr Chalk said, but that could change.
"We do intend to liaise with the government but before that we want a strong conversation with the community," he said.
"It involves public housing, so government is essential, but unless the community wants to work with it, it would be wrong for us to speak on their behalf."
Volunteers were an essential part of the process, Mr Chalk said, something that had become evident in projects elsewhere.
"The critical thing was people realising volunteers were there because they cared, there was nothing in it for them," he said.
In some ways, transforming some communities in Australia, including Apollo, would be more challenging than in the Philippines because of an entrenched reliance on welfare, Mr Chalk said.
"In the Philippines, there are limited resources and no government health and housing programs and no one gets the dole, so people respond to the prospect of a decent house," he said.
"But in Australia they say, 'the Government has already given me one'. When you offer them a job they say, 'I've already got the dole'. When you suggest health care they say, 'there's a hospital down the road, and it's free'.
"In Australia we outsource those things to the government and say it's their job to take care of people, and it works to a point but doesn't address the deep-seated loss or disempowerment you see in communities where there have been three generations on welfare who've lost the confidence in their ability to look after themselves.
"They become dependent on government, and government can miss this sense of care that says people are important and they have dignity, regardless of their means they're valued.
"But within that there are people who are quite inspirational, they want a different future, they don't want their kids to have the life they had, they want them to be independent."
Projects such as that planned for Apollo also had the potential to challenge existing community perceptions, Mr Chalk said.
"So they can say, this isn't the Bronx, it's a place where people care for each other.
A community barbecue will be held at Luna Park from 5.30pm Friday for those who want to have input into the project.