Silvan has been able to assist Ballarat’s CAFS (formerly Child & Family Services) with the donation of a Sherlock 100 litre steel wheelbarrow.
Cafs is in the early stages of developing its Care Farm project on an almost 3-hectare rural property located at Springmount between Creswick and Daylesford that they were able to purchase in 2017.
The property purchased at auction formerly operated as a public amusement park type facility with a nursery, maze and a range of buildings and services that are now considered ideal to convert to a Care Farm.
Cafs CEO Allan Joy says: “there is a wealth of international evidence that a rural type experience presents considerable value with hands on animal activities, green exercise and outdoor activity than the more controlled or formal classroom type intervention”.
Cafs, historically the Ballarat Orphanage, has served the local region for 154 years the Cafs Care Farm and facilities will be working with young children who have experienced trauma, a difficult upbringing, and family breakdown, dropped out of school, or exhibited anti-social behaviour. The practical alternative experience of farming is seen as a new and effective way of improving their opportunities and effective positive change within the community.
More background on the Care Farm project is available at www.cafs.org.au