Cohuna will be getting its childcare facility. In an announcement made on Tuesday, the Victorian Government said it has committed $14 billion to expand kindergarten programs across the state, including 50 new early learning centres, with the Cohuna centre earmarked to open in 2027 or 2028.

Tenielle Edge has led the community campaign for a childcare centre in Cohuna for three years, initiating her fight with a petition in 2020. She was successful in getting a Building Blocks grant to fund a viability study (which she believes was key to the government seeing that Cohuna really was struggling) and for further planning, and has worked alongside Gannawarra Shire Council as it advocated to the State Government and continued to push the cause.

“It was just so good to hear that we had a huge win,” Tenielle said. 

Tenielle admits she got emotional when she received the phone call from Gannawarra Shire Council’s Paul Fernee advising her of the win. “He has been working tirelessly on this for just as long as I have. I cried, and got a bit emotional. It’s just a relief.

“It’s going to be done properly, and that was my biggest thing from the start. I didn’t want to come in and do a short-term fix. It needed to look after the community,” she said, adding that whatever they were going to do needed to be long-term and it needed to be for everyone, not just for five or ten kids. 

Gannawarra Shire Council Chief Executive Officer, Geoff Rollinson said, “The State Government’s announcement is a significant milestone in a community-led campaign to improve current and future early childhood development and childcare needs.  

“Council is pleased to have worked with local families and businesses who have identified the need for improved childcare access for Cohuna and district, which resulted in State Government funding to develop the Exploring Care and Education in Cohuna Final Report.

“Council has used this report, which was presented to Council earlier this year, to strongly advocate to the State Government the need for a dedicated childcare, Pre-Prep and three-year-old kindergarten space for Cohuna.”

While it is some time off before the government-owned centre will open, and many of its first users won’t have been born yet, it will provide some reassurance to families, local businesses, education facilities and community organisations that their future childcare needs will be catered for, and that families can stay in the area rather than relocate or travel just to access childcare.

“Anyone thinking about starting a family soon now gets to think there’s going to be options, which is fantastic,” said Tenielle.

“I didn’t want it to be an issue in another ten years for another mum that was struggling just like I was, and all the mums before me that struggled. It just didn’t make sense to me that in this day and age, we didn’t have a childcare centre.”

Tenielle’s own children will be too old for the centre when it opens, but that hasn’t put a dampener on her celebrations. “It got to the point where I knew my kids weren’t going to see the inside of it. But I have a lot of friends and family in the community that I know will get use out of it, so that’s enough for me.”

Council will work with the State Government and educational providers regarding the location of the new centre and construction timelines.