From our early beginnings New Norcia has had a focus on working with the Noongar people of the area.  The memoirs of our founder Bishop Salvado shed some light on his perspectives in the 1860s.

Salvado saw a need to provide education for Aboriginal people to enable them to participate in the Swan River Colony's growing Australian European community.  In the mornings lessons in St Mary's College for Aboriginal Children focused on learning to read and write.  In the afternoons children and adults who wished to learn were placed with skilled monks and lay people to learn their preferred work. Salvado is believed to have paid close attention to the direction and interests of each trainee. 

Some were assigned to the shoemaker, some to the tinsmith, some to the tailor, others to the blacksmith's shop. In this way a number are said to have become first class tradesmen and on

leaving New Norcia received good pay in Perth and other parts of the colony.