By Caroline Smith
Students at Emmanuel College, Success, have recently tackled the issue of homelessness through a project which aims to provide direct assistance and raise awareness.
Statistics provided by the St Vincent de Paul Society say that some 10,000 Western Australians and 105,000 Australians sleep rough on the streets every night.
Starting in late July, the Year 12 Emmanuel College students who were undertaking the Children, Family and Community course organised themselves into small groups, each coming up with ideas on how to address homelessness in WA.
Some of these centred on advocacy – writing letters to politicians and presenting information to the school – while others included distributing essential items to people on the streets.
Home Economics Coordinator, Deborah Barraclough, said the project had taught students about some of the realities of the issue, including how easy it is for people to become homeless and how diverse their circumstances and stories might be.
“Darren Reynolds, an education officer from the Salvos (Salvation Army), came in to speak to the students, and he explained how it could happen to anyone,” she said.
“For example, there are FIFO workers who earn a lot of money, but if they lose their job, and have debts, they can end up in an insecure situation.
“Students also learned how many people are affected by homelessness, including older people – they met a man who was 75 and had been living on the streets for 20 years.”
One group of three students joined Mrs Barraclough and Salvation Army staff in the city centre to hand out bags of food and toiletries which had been donated by local businesses.
“We got to the Salvos at 7am, then went to the Esplanade and Wellington Square,” Mrs Barraclough said.
“Another group made soup and went in to St Patrick’s (Community Support Centre in Fremantle) on a Saturday and met people there.”
Students also collected warm clothing and blankets to give to the St Vincent de Paul Society, and ran a sausage sizzle which raised $700 for Manna Kitchen, an organisation that provides daily food for the homeless.
Mrs Barraclough said that raising awareness of the issue was also a key activity for the students.
“They used different methods for their advocacy – one group put posters up around the school, another did a PowerPoint presentation during each form class about the issue, and of course they used social media to spread the word through their family and friendship groups,” she said.