Page 63 - Tropic Magazine Issue 18

TROPIC • BUSINESS

Tools for success

A globally recognised, B-Corp certified as we can but it’s up to you blokes to stand
SHAPING THE FUTURE up and get through your time’. They are
social enterprise co-founded by James
In a Queensland first, Mihaven and Sarah Mort, MiHaven is involved in shining examples of what hard work and
has celebrated the graduation property development and construction, dedication can deliver to a community
and it is a true, life-changing story.”
of five Indigenous apprentices. but also doubles as a training provider In recognition of its social enterprise
specialising in employment for
Indigenous and other disadvantaged success, MiHaven was the recipient of
people. As such, it has a unique the Master Builders 2018 Diversity Award,
understanding of the training required which acknowledged the company’s
for employment in its industries. commitment to supporting the most
James Mort told Tropic that MiHaven vulnerable and needy members of
prides itself on providing personalised society. The company, established in 2011,
support to its students. “Our motto of is supported by its shareholders and
‘Shaping the Future’ applies to all the advisory board, whose members share a
work we do, including training,” he said. wealth of experience in social
Cairns-based construction and training “We are so proud of what our boys, Roy impact investment and
company MiHaven is a shining example Patterson, Coleridge Yeatman, Charles social entrepreneurialism.
of a commercial enterprise with a cause. Murgha, Frederick Lefoe and Wendel
Its five recent graduates, from Australia’s Bounghi, have achieved. When they
largest Aboriginal community of started we said ‘look we can do as much
Yarrabah, have each received a Certificate
III in carpentry, a ticket to a promising
future career. They nailed success in just
over three years of training, during which
they helped build 24 MiHaven houses.
Traditionally, it takes an Indigenous
apprentice an average of eight years to
achieve such a result, so to have five in one
cohort has broken all Queensland records.
Graduating apprentice Roy Patterson said
it’s an achievement he’ll use to inspire
others. “Having a career pathway and
becoming someone you want to be, it’s
never too late,” he said. “Those are the
things I want my community to see. I can
now say that it is my turn to inspire and
teach any new apprentices that start work MORE: mihaven.com.au
in my community.”

High-speed fix

The team at AirBridge Networks recently overhauled MiHaven’s
internet systems to deliver high-speed, high quality connections.
The brief was to provide reliable, fast connection and ‘AirBridge’ it to
internet to MiHaven’s head office and the different sites. “We established
three student accommodation facilities a baseline of network traffic to
in Cairns. MiHaven was spending huge understand the company’s digital
amounts on four different internet footprint, augmented the internal
services that could be frustratingly network environment and identified
slow. AirBridge Managing Director Doug bottlenecks,” Mr Stephens said. “Then
Stephens said the experience is all too we built and implemented a high speed
common. “They had multiple locations AirBridge link between sites.”
that each required a non-contended The whole job took two weeks from
high speed internet connection, or in sign-off to completion, a pace only
layman’s terms a connection which surpassed by the internet speeds
doesn’t slow down at peak times,” he it delivered.
said. “They also had expensive monthly
carrier operational costs.” MORE: airbridge.net.au
The solution was to use one robust

63 • tropicnow.com.au