Willan Foundation acknowledges the traditional owners of the land upon which we live and work and pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.
Willan means “guiding spirit” of the yellow-tailed black cockatoo in the language of the Gunditjmara people. It is a name that reflects everything we stand for.
Willan Foundation was established as a Company Limited by Guarantee on 22 May 2024, co-founded by Uncle Ricky Morris and Kaelun Brown, who had been acting as guiding spirits for young Aboriginal people for many years through their work in the plumbing and construction industry.
As a result of our combined lived, work and voluntary experience, we have the cultural knowledge, reputation, qualifications, skills, and extensive experience of working with Aboriginal people, particularly young people, to support their journey to obtain an apprenticeship and permanent employment in the plumbing and construction industry.
The vision of our founders is to enhance the sustainable economic prosperity for First Nations peoples. Our purpose is to inspire First Nations communities’ economic prosperity through leadership and innovation, ensuring First Nations peoples achieve self-determination.
We are an Aboriginal Company Limited by Guarantee and an ACNC registered charity with Public Benevolent Institution (PBI), Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR), and Income Tax Exemption status.
Background
Uncle Ricky Morris – Co-Founder
Ricky is a Gunditjmara man from Heywood in Western Victoria. He is the third youngest in a family of thirteen children, and his parents moved around regional Victoria in the 1970s in order to find work.
Living in Traralgon, he finished secondary school in year nine and went to a technical college. Apprenticeships in the small country town were hard to come by when you belonged to one of only four Aboriginal families in the area.
Ricky then travelled to Melbourne in the 1980s, staying in the Lady Gladys Nicholls Hostel in Northcote, which accommodated Aboriginal people visiting from the country. An Aunty from the local community mentioned there were some apprenticeships on offer for Aboriginal people. Ricky applied and was successful.
Being a young Aboriginal man from the bush working in the Melbourne construction industry was tough. There were no culturally safe learning environments, and racism was rife. Ricky felt “he had a target on his back being a young black man.”
During smoko there was interest in the Krakouer brothers, who were playing elite level football for North Melbourne Football Club at the time, but little else.
Ricky went back to country whenever the opportunity presented itself. By the age of 21, Ricky knew that he wanted to establish a foundation to support other young Aboriginal people. He had a dream of providing a culturally safe space for learning with individualized mentoring and support.
Within a few years of completing his apprenticeship, Ricky became the first Aboriginal licensed plumber in Victoria. Whilst all plumbers are registered, being licensed allows a plumber to start their own private business.
By the early 1990s Ricky had a young family of his own to support.
He joined the Army Reserves initially, before joining the same unit his grandfather had joined some eighty years before – the 4/19th Prince of Wales Light Horse. Ricky was the twenty-fifth member of the Lovett family from Heywood to see active duty.
In 1995 Ricky joined the regular Army as an Engineer and during this time was accompanying recruiting teams to Indigenous communities.
Ricky Morris | Serving Country
Ricky’s family has a long service history, stretching back to WWI. There were five Lovett brothers that served in WWI – Alfred, Leonard, Frederick, Edward and Herbert and four of these also volunteered for WWII, most of whom had seen action on the Western Front. They are from the Gunditjmara Nation in Western Victoria from the Lake Condah Mission. Frederick served in Palestine with the 4th Light Horse Regiment. Ricky is Frederick’s grandson. The Veteran’s Affairs building in Canberra is named after the Lovett family to honour their distinguished military contribution.
In East Timor Ricky worked on projects to supply fresh water and sewerage facilities. In Afghanistan Ricky completed a nine-month tour of duty. In peace time, he worked in remote communities on Army Aboriginal Community Assistance Program projects. Ricky left the Army with the rank of Sergeant in the Royal Australian Engineers Corps.
He went on to establish Pathways Plumbing Service.
Indigenous Commercial Plumbing Contractors Melbourne
In the mid-2000s Ricky was involved in the ‘Build your life’ program in Wodonga, which had a 100% success rate. Fourteen young Aboriginal people completed the program and six secured apprenticeships. A culturally safe learning environment and location was provided, as it became apparent that the young people were not comfortable attending the local mainstream education institutions.
Ricky has been in plumbing for forty years and has had a diverse array of life experiences. He wants to give back to his community by being a cultural mentor for young men and women when they hit the crossroads in life.
Through Pathway Plumbing Service, Ricky has been acting as a guiding spirit for young Aboriginal people for many years and alongside Kaelun Brown, has co-founded the Willan Foundation and Meerran Pty Ltd.
Pathways Plumbing Service has a successful history of facilitating the Guiding Spirits Program for SPARK Northeast Link (NEL). This involved recruiting, inducting, training and mentoring apprentices.
Kaelun Brown (KB) – Co Founder
KB is a Gunditjmara, Yorta Yorta and Wiradjuri man.
In mid-2008 he secured an Indigenous apprenticeship position through the Plumbers Union but by his second year realised he wasn’t quite ready to continue.
Instead, KB obtained a Certificate IV in Men’s Behaviour Change from Swinburne University and worked at the Victorian Aboriginal Community Services Association Limited (VACSAL) Men’s Centre. The Centre focused on assisting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men using family violence, drugs and alcohol.
After a few years at VACSAL, KB still held a desire to be a tradesperson, and an opportunity to complete his plumbing apprenticeship presented itself.
By this time, KB was a mature age apprentice and had a partner and young family. He took a pay cut in order to finish the apprenticeship and encountered a lot of racism on building sites.
After completing his apprenticeship, KB ran into Ricky, an old family friend. KB talked to Ricky about the challenges he had faced as the only Aboriginal tradesperson on building sites. KB joined Ricky at the company where Ricky was working, before they decided to start their own business Pathways Plumbing Services, together.
KB has now been a plumber for eight years and working alongside Ricky for three. The partnership with Ricky has empowered KB to use his voice to speak up and make changes in the industry. KB asserts that he has “grown as a man and as a human” under Ricky’s guidance.
KB left Pathways Plumbing Services in 2023 to establish his own company Yellowtail Services which specialises in cultural competency training and supporting Aboriginal apprentices to enter the plumbing and construction industry.
SPARK-Willan-Program-Playbook.pdf
In 2025, Pathways Plumbing won the Civil Contractors Federation Victoria – Training Employer of the year, in recognition of the Willan Guiding Spirits Program.
