More businesses interested in Indigenous Enterprise Partnerships

Indigenous Enterprise Partnerships (IEP) arranges for corporate employees to train Indigenous workers, share experiences, and develop and implement policies.

IEP chief executive Karyn Baylis says the program has been so successful, it is being expanded.

"Until now we've had over 500 people working in the Cape since our inception and as a result the awareness of this program is really starting to build," she said.

"We've just recently gone into a partnership with the Business Council of Australia and as a result we're getting approaches from corporates to say 'how can we get engaged?"

The program will also be started at Redfern in Sydney and the Kimberley region in Western Australia.

"A lot of corporates come into this because they want to be good global citizens, but they actually see they get a hell of a lot more out of it," Ms Baylis said.

"What they find is that their people develop dramatically.

"A lot of people use it for a recruitment attraction, to some of the high performing [people], especially graduates out of university, to say you can work in this space ... a great retention tool."

Source: www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/13/2742106.htm?section=business