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Every night across Australia 22,000 teenagers are homeless.
I recently wrote an article about Homelessness in Australia. A part of the inspiration for that article was not just the fact that I am involved with the community sector but that I saw a fantastic documentary on free-to-air television here just recently: Oasis.
The documentary is about the Oasis Youth Support Network for homeless young people in central Sydney. The language, the behaviour and the bare and brutal realities of the lives of the young people involved are pretty harsh - violence, drugs, alcohol, prison, and so on. When the documentary was screened here on the ABC, it was followed by a live forum with Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek and representatives of several community sector organisations and interests - including Salvation Army Captain Paul Moulds (who runs the Oasis Youth Support Network). The forum audience was made up of a variety of people including some of the homeless people who had featured in the documentary. It is also a story of hope, resilience and overcoming all odds.
The Oasis movie is quite the eye-opener and although I am not personally too surprised by some of the things it reveals, it is no less shocking. The Federal Government of Australia has declared that homelessness is one of it’s priorities. They can talk the talk, now its time to see if they can walk the walk. There is a trailer available for the film. The National Youth Commission’s Australia’s Homeless Youth Report is also available. Get involved !
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File Type: Image1. Develop and implement a national framework and National Homelessness Action Plan
2. Affordable housing for young people
3. Refocus service provision on building and resourcing ‘communities of services’
4. Prevent homelessness by supporting ‘at-risk’ families
5. Resource early intervention for at risk young people.
6. A new national approach for the care and protection of children in
all states and territories
7. Ensure supported accommodation is accessible in all communities
8. Redevelop employment, D&A (Drug and Alcohol) and mental health programs for homeless young people
9. A new form of youth housing which links housing to education,
training and employment programs
10. Post-vention support
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I don’t know how they translate to the Philippines experience; there seem to be similarities from what you say there. Although we have different cultures and societies, perhaps one may say that there are likely similar symmetries of focus across cultures - like how the snowflake symmetry is six-fold but never exactly replicating the same pattern.
I think that #3 is particularly powerful and I believe it relates to creating organic ”communities of services” around problems and problematic issues - such that individuals are not forced to match themselves to the services (being pulled this way and that trying to negotiate all of the government agencies and non-profit services) but the services are tailored to match the individuals’ needs and dynamically shape themselves around the needs on a per case basis.
To pre-empt you (from a reaction to a previous topic) - yes, it can all just degenerate into a talk-fest of empty promise... but as I said previously, we have to do something...
In this case, the Salvation Army group does that over there.
Being in Community Development, I’m sure you have noticed that at the level of community, the non-gov is more active that the local government unit.
And here, just like there, its government that maps out plans, thinks up strategies, etc (of course, upon consultation with civil society), but it is civil society that is left to operationalize the plan, at the end of the day.
My only misgiving with the group (in your article that I commented on earlier) is that: we really haven’t heard or read much about what they have actually done since their inception (would love for you to share if you indeed find any). For example, those in the arts such as Michael Douglas amd Steven Spielberg etc still continue to do their stuff. Haven’t come across any ”non-traditional” or ”alternative” stuff they have done wchich can point to the mandate of their global coalition.
But, yes, we have to do something. In our own little way. Even if it’s just teaching literacy to out-of-school youth drug dependents somewhere in the Payatas dumpsite, Quezon City.
If you wish you can look that place up in the Internet and try to place me in the scene because teaching a quarter of a year there is what I do every year.
Go to the ”Stories” section and then to the ”Payatas Dumpsite, Child Labor” - very fine photography and a compelling narrative of fact.
People living off the reuseable things they find in a smoking, steaming pile of smelly garbage. You are teaching literacy there ? Wow. Toxic smoke, putrid smell, troubled kids - it must be a very difficult workplace indeed !
Grace, you are an altruistic, articulate, intelligent gift to the children of the Philippines. Amazing.
I seriously think that this is amazing and admirable work.
Payatas - the information I found suggested some tens of thousands of people glean a living off the garbage waste of Manila...
Re: Global Coalition, yes... it is conspicuous by its absence...
