Chasing a career dream

– Ed Merrison
IT’S A LONG way to Long Island, but Garth Nevin’s passion is taking him from the outer east to East Coast USA.
Garth, a member of disability support organisation Interchange Outer East, will spend 18 months lending his experience to a similar program in Long Island, New York.
A three-month summer camp in 2003 gave Garth a first taste of the USA and the Association for the Help of Retarded Children (AHRC).
AHRC was so impressed with his work in Hunter, Upstate New York that they accepted him back for a longer stint.
The trip will give 24-year-old Garth, who has a degree in Disability Studies from Deakin University, a chance to further a career he is passionate about.
He has been at Interchange in Ferntree Gully for eight years and this year started up the community element of the organisation’s three-pronged Balance program.
Balance is an adult day program, which also has a work and recreation focus, while Garth’s current work helps people learn their way around the community.
This includes training, looking for jobs, finding access to services and developing independence.
“I’ve loved it, but it’s set up now so it can work without me, so I don’t feel too bad leaving,” Garth said.
He owes a great debt to Interchange for the experience it has given him, but knows he goes with his colleagues’ blessing.
He also knows he will miss people at work, family and friends, not least those from Heinz Southern District Cricket Club.
Garth sits on the committee of the Hampton Park club, and feels his improving batting might have made a worthy contribution to the team he loves.
“They’ve just been my best friends,” he said. “It’s an awesome club and I support it big time.”
He said he will go mad if he cannot find a US substitute for traditional Aussie sport, and might give gridiron football or baseball a go.
Not one to shrink from a challenge, he reckons teaching his charges to hook, pull and drive like a baggy green legend might also be a bit of fun.
And there is plenty besides to draw him to a move stateside.
“I’m looking forward to living abroad, hopefully making my way up that organisation and getting better at what I do,” he said.