From homelessness to Bangladesh

07 Oct 2015

By The Record

Vaughan with one of his photographs at a recent exhibition at City Farm. Photo: Supplied

At the age of 14, Vaughan Guan found himself caught in a cycle of homelessness after being kicked out of home as a result of his excessive drug use and anti-social behaviour but, with support from the St Vincent de Paul Society, he has turned his life around, is sharing a house in Highgate and is now looking to forge a career in photojournalism.

“I had a nice house with a reasonable family but all I wanted to do was get high and my drug use led to a lot of conflict with my father, his wife and her daughter,” Vaughan said.

As a result, he spent his teen years not knowing where he would end up the next day, oscillating between couch surfing and being on the streets.

“It wasn’t nice to have to live in such a state of instability and uncertainty.”

“I realised how much of a disaster I was and I wanted to do something about it but couldn’t because everything was so unstable and I didn’t know what I was going to do or where I was going to go from one day to the next.”

Vaughan heard about the Passages Resource Centre in Northbridge which is a drop-in centre for marginalised and street-present young people aged 12-25 years.

A joint venture of the Rotary Club of Perth and St Vincent de Paul Society, Passages provides a safe and positive place for young people to access essential facilities such as bathroom, kitchen and laundry facilities, practical assistance and access to further support services to help young people build relationships, develop skills, and ultimately help them to break out of the cycle of homelessness.

Vaughan utilised the services of Passages for around 10 years, where he was helped to find accommodation and supported to make positive changes.

“Passages has done a lot for me over the years, providing me with basic things like food, referring me to other services, finding transitional accommodation and now permanent accommodation,” said Vaughan.

“When things were a little more stable I started to engage more with the support services available and really take advantage of the things I could do to improve my situation,” Vaughan said.

Vaughan’s interest in photography was peeked in 2012 when he participated in the “Home is Where My Heart Is” project run by YACWA which teams at-risk youth with photographer mentors to photograph what home means to them.

Passages staff have since assisted Vaughan to start studying and he is currently doing a Bachelor of Creative Industries with a Major in Photomedia at ECU and, most recently, has been accepted to participate in an International Photojournalism and Documentary Photography unit held in Bangladesh in January 2016.

Vaughan is keen to sell some of his photographic pieces to fund his trip to Bangladesh.

Vaughan can be contacted on 0412 431 810 or vguan91@gnail.com.

To find out more about Passages Resource Centre, visit www.passagesresourcecentre.com.