Kimba Economic Development Manager Mel Garibaldi said the town’s Kimba workforce planning strategy identified a lack of people in several trades and skills, and early childcare education was one of them.

“It was important to have suitable, qualified people in the community that can deliver any form of childcare service,” Garibaldi said.  

“Which is why we decided to offer our scholarship to any community member who was interested in receiving the qualification.”

The $2000 dollar scholarship, which is only open to people residing in the District Council of Kimba, will cover the cost of the course and any additional costs such as potential travel to Port Lincoln or Whyalla.

Roughly 1211 residents live in the district, which is one of the largest wheat producing areas in the state, and more than 200 children attend Kimba Area School.

“I talked to our childcare facility here, they said they would be happy to take anyone for placement. So, the person will finish their study and basically have a placement to go to,” Garibaldi said.

The plan to increase the number of childcare educators also has an aim to improve childcare facilities in the community, with the council hoping more educators will attract investment in current childcare facilities and future developments.

Garibaldi said the Kimba District Council was originally investigating the future of childcare facility arrangements for the community before they noticed the skills problem.

“While we were doing this research, looking to what could be done, we realised there’s a lack of skilled workers in childcare at the moment here,” she said.

The issues of being a small town, separated from others are nothing new for Garibaldi and the council, but the active community has always been ready to band together when needed.

“We’re remote, we are regional and we have a lot of issues like regional towns do but our community is really hands-on and they always come up with really creative solutions,” Garibaldi said.

“We want to encourage our community to solve some of the issues that we have.”

This town spirit saw Kimba being named as the Agricultural Town of the Year last year. The award is given by the Department of Primary Industries and Regions (PIRSA) in a program run by InDaily in conjunction with its Regional Showcase Awards.

Applications for the scholarship have opened and the council is eager to see the reaction they get.

“This is a little bit of a test run, at the moment we have one scholarship available and depending on the amount of applications that we receive, we will reassess to see if we will keep our scholarship going,” Garibaldi said.

“Then even a capacity to offer more than one if it’s something that there’s a need for in the community.”