Earlier this week, Australian discount department store Kmart finished a major refurbishment.
It wasn’t a store that had been transformed, but Bowen College: a 15-student school in Sydney that focuses on young people who are experiencing extreme disadvantage, and have become disengaged from mainstream education.
Bowen College’s staff take a holistic approach to teaching, and use therapeutic and restorative practices to help empower students to tackle the issues they face inside and outside of the classroom.
Through a partnership with charity the Reach Foundation, a youth organisation that aims to help young people in need, Kmart replaced many worn out and non-functional elements of the school with new furniture and homewares from its own range.
“It was fine to understand what the practical uses of the rooms were ahead of time, but it wasn’t until we got in there and started taking out the old furniture that we realised what the students really needed,” Kmart’s head of community Kate Thiedeman told Inside Retail.
It was also integral to see the layout of communal spaces through the lens of young Australians.
Through conversations with the Reach Foundation, younger Kmart employees, and Elle Lovelock, editor of Real Living and Home Beautiful, the design team created spaces that would actually be utilised and enjoyed by the students.
“We’d have young team members come in while we were designing the rooms and say, ‘It looks nice, but maybe move this around’, or ‘That’s not how we would use this room’,” Theideman said.
“We were able to apply that in a whole different way, through all the spaces in the [college].”
Bowen College acting school manager Jeni Lee said that the team was ecstatic when they learned Kmart was going to deliver a makeover on the premises.
“The young people we work with often face challenging circumstances outside of school,” Lee said.
“An iconic organisation like Kmart donating its time and resources to give these students a special place to learn and develop is an act of generosity that we – and the school community – will never forget.”
Supporting the experts
Tackling the issues facing young people is a core concern of Kmart, Theideman said, as more than 70 per cent of the business’ workforce are aged under 21.
“It’s really critical that we’re understanding and supporting the wellbeing of young people in a meaningful way,” Theideman said.
“We know that we need to support the experts in that, and Reach Foundation are truly the experts. They have quite a unique vision of helping young people, and they do that through young people – it’s a youth led organisation.”
Reach Foundation is one of Kmart’s longest standing charity partners, and approached the department store to execute the refurbishment to aid in the students’ education.
“Connecting young people we work with, at places like the Bowen College, to our mates at Kmart is what great partnerships are all about,” said Reach Foundation’s senior facilitator Paris Rovedi.
“Together, we’ve been lucky enough to give these young people the space to dream, back each other, and be themselves.”
According to Theideman, Bowen College may not be the last makeover Kmart does.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t get some more requests,” Theideman said.
“It was a really big venture, and we learned a lot, so now it’s about figuring out who to help next. I don’t know if it’d be exactly the same [as Bowen College], but we’re doing lots of community assistance all the time.”
The post A space for young people to dream: Inside Kmart’s school makeover appeared first on Inside Retail.
