Devoting her life to one of the Colour City’s most worthy, though chronically underfunded, community service projects for nearly two decades, Paula Townsend, a few years ago, temporarily gave up the unequal struggle.

Exactly one week later, she was back in charge at Bowen Community Technology Centre — located in one of our most disadvantaged suburban areas — with a fistful of community grant applications aimed at getting the centre back up and running.

Now she is getting by with a little help from her friends, with a local supermarket recently launching a scheme to raise $15,000 so that Paula will have an assistant for a few hours a week for a load that she, until now, has carried on her own.

In more good news for the hub, which runs on a wing, a prayer, and a financial shoestring at the best of times, a new get-ready-for-work initiative is being launched at the site next year.

It all began during the mid-noughties when troubled times bedevilled the largely public housing project area.

“It was in 2006–2007, when we had a series of fire bombings, three in one week, and some serious social unrest,” Paula recalled.

“Old people were too afraid to go to their mailbox, and young mums were not prepared to push their baby in a stroller out the front gate,” she added.

A community meeting was called, with 250 locals attending, leading to the establishment of the Bowen Resident Action group (BRAG).

“We started the group up, got money from Cadia (Operations), with the aim of identifying some of the issues round here.

“One of those was, locals didn’t have the opportunity of other people in regards to computers and the internet, and so we started the Technology Centre,” Paula explained.

She said that, despite the abundance of online devices now, the dozen or so computers at the Centre that provide a space for local kids to do homework, carry out research, and just explore the wonders of the internet, are just as important as ever.

“If you’ve got six kids in a house, you can’t expect them to all do their homework on Mum’s phone with a cracked screen.

“There’s a lot more people moving to Orange now, people from out west who are struggling and come here to get away,” Paula believes.

School attendance issues for many children in the district, sees the Centre often taking the lead in exposing these kids to learning, as well as to expectations of the wider world.

“Some have learning difficulties, some come here to learn different things from what they do at school.

“Society treats them one way, school treats them another and here, we treat them as they should behave, as the community expects people to behave.”

Having run the centre as a one-woman show for so long, eventually got the better of her a few years ago, and Paula temporarily pulled the plug, as it were.

“I closed for a week in 2022, I couldn’t do the grant applications here, there were too many distractions.

“So, I went home and worked day and night applying for every grant I could and did all the paperwork, but I couldn’t stay away,” she explained.

Averaging about 20 local kids a day dropping in to use the computers, for some companionship, and also for a bit of a feed that Paula also provides among her other duties, things are looking up.

“We’re always on the edge, but we’re a lot better than we were, next year we’re hoping to get enough funding for ‘Work Ready’ workshops.

This will be for local adults, coaching them to prepare for jobs in the workplace; we’re also running a Wednesday Kids Club,” she revealed.

Seeing the good work she does, our locally owned supermarket has recently come on board.

“I was approached by Ashcroft’s IGA about having some part-time help for me here.

“They’re looking at raising enough money for someone to be employed about 10 hours a week for a year, which will give me more time with the kids.”

Only paid about 27 hours a week for what is a full-time vocation, Paula received due recognition last year as Orange Woman of the Year award, but eschews all the fuss.

“I saw what needed to be done, but we didn’t know what we were going to do,” Paula said in recalling the early years of the centre.

“It sort of grew, as the needs grew.”