youthoffthestreets.com.au

Remarkable stories of courage and strength from

our young people

“What Christmas means to me”

A simple act of kindness can be a turning point for a better future.

Belonging

Some of these stories will be hard to read. There are moments throughout of unimaginable abuse, unspeakable violence, poverty, homelessness, self-harm, suicide… things that are difficult to hear yet too horrific to ignore.

Never underestimate the power of your kindness

It reveals the ‘how’ of homelessness for some of the young people that you and I have helped – the

defining moments, the turning points, the reasons that led them to a life on the streets with no safety, no warmth, no food, no friendship.

These stories are real. They highlight the issues kids are facing, right now, and the ongoing need for our services and your support. Some of them have been able to overcome their past and work toward something brighter. Some have not.

What you choose to do this Christmas matters. Your decision to give will allow us to create more moments - positive moments - in the lives of homeless young people.

Yours faithfully, Father Chris Riley

Mum was an alcoholic and drank heavily while she was pregnant with me. I was born addicted to alcohol and was later diagnosed with Foetal Alcohol Disorder.

M y home life was extremely unstable to say the least. Mum continued to

struggle with her alcoholism and poor mental health, while dad was a known member of a bikie gang. He battled with his own drug and alcohol issues. I had no real role models to look up to and was a very lonely and troubled child.

Dad wasn’t around much while I was growing up and he and mum went their separate ways. Mum ended up remarrying but her alcoholism became worse and her second marriage also broke down. She suffered even more mental health issues and her life spiralled out of control. From there she was always in and out of abusive relationships.

When I was 13, mum’s mental health was at an all-time low. She couldn’t put up with me anymore and kicked me out of home. I spent six months couch-surfing but could only spend a few days at people’s places at a

time until I’d overstayed my welcome. So every two or three days

a week I was out on the streets sleeping rough.

That was a very scary time for me, I’d never felt so alone in all my life.

While I was homeless I was

suffering severe depression and began cutting myself. I know it sounds weird but when you self-harm you feel like you’re in control of the pain. You’re the one doing it, you’re the one controlling it and no one else. But it got to a point where I couldn’t control it anymore and I became very suicidal.

There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t think about killing myself. The trauma I had experienced throughout my childhood and into my adolescence was taking over and I desperately needed help. I bounced around a few homeless services until a friend’s mum took me in. I got back on track for a while but it didn’t last. I fell in with the wrong crowd, dropped out of school and to deal with my crippling depression I developed a serious drug and alcohol problem.

I then had a friend recommend I contact Youth Off The Streets. From the moment I was in contact with them it felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. People there get what you’re going through. They listen to you and make you feel valued. I suddenly felt that everything was going to be ok.

Don’t get me wrong, I still battled with a lot of self-sabotaging anxiety and it was a lot of

New beginningsHealing

hard work. But I finally felt like things could work out because I had the

support. I managed to land a job as a stable hand. I also started a body piercing

apprenticeship.

YOTS helped me find a little place of my own, and that really helped me improve my mental health and overcome my depression. I then graduated at the YOTS Chapel School in Merrylands and moved on in my career in the race horse industry as an apprentice jockey and track worker. I also became a fully qualified body piercer.

For the first time, everything felt perfect in my life. I had a home, a job, an education. I felt happy. Then everything came tumbling down once again. I was involved in a massive horse-riding accident which left me with a fractured eye socket, fractured cheekbone, broken ribs, broken nose, fractured pelvis, 3 ruptured discs in my spine. I suffered bruising and swelling in my brain which left me in a coma.

I considered myself lucky as I was alive and started to recover from most of my injuries, but once again my mental health plummeted. I was now terrified of horses and I was grief-stricken – they had once given me so much happiness and now that was taken away from me.

I took some time to focus on my recovery and career in body piercing. I was working hard and then started a family. When I fell pregnant with my first son, I suffered a stroke.

A couple years later I welcomed my second

son and then a third. My career in body piercing was taking off but despite it all I felt drawn to choose a different path.

I started my own business and recently found myself giving back to Youth Off The Streets to help start an Equine Therapy Program. It really helped me overcome my fear of horses and grow to love these majestic animals once more. Horses really are amazing – they provide a great deal of comfort, particularly for trauma victims and I use five of my own horses and ponies in my therapy. We work closely with young people to help them overcome their own trauma.

I suppose the moral of my story is never give up. There were so many points in my life where I was ready to call it in and be done with it all.

It’s only now I look back and go “yeah, that sucked a lot”. It’s hard to have perspective when you’re living it day to day and you think that sort of childhood is normal. But I learnt a lot about myself and that made me more determined than ever to fight harder. I’m now 25 years old with three beautiful boys. I have my own business, I volunteer for YOTS and I’m finally happy.

As we come up to Christmas, I always reflect on where I came from and how far I’ve come today. And I became who I am today because of that self-determination and the support I received from my friends at YOTS to follow my dreams.

If this reaches anyone who’s struggling - anyone who feels like they’re alone and there’s no one there to help them, just remember: you’re worth more than you know.— Kimm, YOTS Volunteer

C hristmas was always tough for me. Everyone else celebrates with their

family. But I had no one. Then a spot opened up at the refuge. I could stay there a while. I could have a shower and sleep in a bed. I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I got there. I was nervous, tired, restless, unsettled and my self-confidence was really down.

I was welcomed with open arms from the very first night I arrived. You have no idea how wonderful that felt – to be welcomed and not be pushed away. I don’t remember anyone showing me that sort of kindness.

In that moment, I didn’t feel so alone.

I thought, if there are people like you out there - genuine people who don’t judge you for what you look like or where you come from - then maybe there was hope for me yet.

Since arriving here, the youth workers have helped put a roof over my head, food on the table every night and have

A story of hope and growth

kindness

I was homeless and had no direction in life. I was so focused on surviving that I was afraid to think about the future; I didn’t want to get my hopes up that I actually had one.

even helped me set some short-term goals. I’ve learned all sorts of life skills that I never knew how to do growing up, like how to cook and do chores. I have a long way to go, I know. But this really helps.

Every youth worker has to be given credit for what they do. I don’t think they realise how much it means to us all to have them around and I really am so grateful knowing they are here for me.

You show so much warmth and respect for everyone that walks through those doors, myself included. It means so much to me to have you in my life.

- Ben*, 17 years old

There are young people in Australia

who are completely illiterate. They

can’t read at all, let alone cooking instructions on a

pack of ready-made food.

EducationTaking things for granted

Volunteering at Youth Off The Streets has opened my eyes to how tough it is for disadvantaged kids to escape poverty and have a better life.

It was coming up to Christmas and I remember filling up a box with groceries

to take to a young person who grew up homeless after his mum died. He spent many years on the streets begging. With the help of his case worker, he found accommodation in a housing commission block near Redfern in Sydney.

As I was packing the groceries, a youth worker told me to not include anything that had cooking instructions on the pack – no frozen food that needed reheating in the oven or microwave, and nothing that required cooking on the stove. “Simple things,” he said, “that’s easy for him to make: cereal, canned food, bread and milk.”

This young person was in his late teens and couldn’t read. He didn’t know how to cook even the simplest of meals.

And he also didn’t know how to tell the time. We couldn’t ring ahead and ask him be at home at 8pm for us to deliver the groceries. He didn’t know what 8pm meant.

I feel silly saying this, but it never occurred to me there are young people in Australia who are completely illiterate. They can’t read at all, let alone cooking instructions on a pack of ready-made food. Getting them to turn up to an appointment is an almost impossible task if they don’t know how to tell the time.

How can they possibly be able to live independently or get a job and keep it, if they don’t have these important life skills?

This young person is now 21 and with our help, is learning to read and write. He is not completely independent, and still relies on us to remind him when he needs to pay his rent or go to an appointment. It’s slow going, but we’re getting there. It makes me wonder how many more young people are in a similar situation?

– Karen, YOTS Volunteer

After my adoptive parents split up, my mum, brother and I packed up and moved to Melbourne. Life was hard, mum tried to work while raising two small kids, but money was tight and there would be days where we wouldn’t eat.

I was only five when it started. Mum met him around Christmas, so that time of the year

is still traumatic for me. He seemed ok to begin with, but he drank a lot and things soon turned very violent. There wouldn’t be a night where mum wouldn’t be raped or beaten to a pulp.

I remember my brother and I would hide behind the lounge as he would throw a rock or pot plant through our window. He would pound loudly on the door and sometimes break in. He even managed to climb up three stories onto our balcony and smash through the window to get at her. She would tell us to run to our rooms and barricade the door.

Those awful noises when it happened and the sight of my mum afterwards will live with me forever: the yelling, the screaming and smashing, then my poor mum curled up bloody and bruised on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

We moved a lot to try to get away but he always seem to find us, so I was never at the same school for very long. It made it really hard to make friends let alone learn anything. Mum would go to the police all the time with cuts and bruises but their advice at the time

was don’t let him in, walk away and what still angers me to this day: don’t provoke him.

When I was 11 he threw a cocktail bomb through my window and I went to hospital with glass in my eyes and lacerations to my face. He set fire to our home and even the car. Luckily a police officer who lived next door saw the whole thing so they had a warrant out for his arrest.

He ran off and was never seen again, but that didn’t stop the nightmares and the sleepless nights – I kept worrying he would be back at any moment.

When I was 12, I felt like it was time to make everyone pay for the life I’d had. I would lash out at my mother, brother, friends and teachers. I got expelled from many schools, including one time in Year 8 when I got drunk and set the girls toilets on fire.

I lived on the streets for six months before my mum found me and made me see a counsellor. After one session he deemed me uncontrollable and sent me to a girl’s home for two years. Just after my 15th birthday they finally released me into mum’s care. But she had walked into another violent relationship

Family

Hope Love

Finding peace after violence

so I went back to what I believed at the time was the safest option, the streets.

When I was 16 my mum found me and said my biological parents wanted to meet me. They got married after adopting me out and went on to having two more girls. At first I was angry and hurt but I eventually met them and moved to Sydney to live with them. It started off great, but it didn’t last. My rough upbringing and time spent on the streets was too much for them to handle, so I left.

I met a guy and after a whirlwind romance, we were married within six months of meeting each other. He would hit me most weeks but it was never as violent as what I’d grown up with so I put up with it. He would always be so nice the next day and promised he would never do it again. I had faced so much rejection in my life and I think I stayed because I believed he was the only one who thought I was worth being loved.

My first pregnancy was hard as he would hit me a lot – so badly sometimes that I ended up in hospital. The violence resulted in my first son being born six weeks premature and only weighing 500grams. Somehow he survived.

My second son was only a month old when my husband flew into a rage one night and knocked me out. I woke up to my two-year-old looking over me, crying, calling out to me. His dad picked him up and threw him across the room. The next morning I packed what I could and fled.

My birth parents by then had split up, but I was close with my biological dad and the kids and I ended up living with him. I couldn’t have done it without my dad because I decided I needed to further my education to get ahead in life. And during that time I was also in a court battle for four years with my husband

who wanted custody of our children.

I decided I wanted to get into youth work and help kids who had a similar upbringing to me. I knew what they were going through because I had gone through it myself. I only had a Year 8 education, so over several years I worked my way up to earn a diploma in Community Services at TAFE.

As part of my course, I volunteered at Dunlea, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation service which is still run by Youth Off The Streets to this day.

I knew I had found my true calling the moment I stepped foot inside this service and saw all the incredible work that was being done. I have now been working for YOTS for over 15 years, where I run a number of programs to help disadvantaged and vulnerable young people.

– Kylie, YOTS Aftercare Manager

Forgiveness

The macadamia treeOne of the worst cases of abuse I came across was a young person who displayed severe post-traumatic stress. She had been homeless for several years, prone to self-harm and had had several run-ins with the law.

Our building had a backyard with a macadamia tree and she would sit

there for hours, staring at the ground, rocking back and forth.

Her behaviour became increasingly bizarre and erratic. Sometimes she would walk in with her clothes ripped apart, telling us she had been raped. We’d go to the hospital but every time they would say they couldn’t identify any signs of sexual violence. We then realised she was reliving her past abuse as flashbacks, as though it was happening to her right then and there.

It took a long time to build her trust. Eventually she opened up to us. She had been sexually abused by her father since she was very young and fell pregnant when she was 11. The father beat her and she lost the child.

At 12 she fell pregnant once again. Her mother was complicit in the abuse. They made her give birth at home so the baby was off hospital records. One day, they tied her to a chair and sexually assaulted the baby, which passed away in front of her eyes. They put the baby into an incinerator and burnt it. She fled home soon after.

I am a mandatory reporter of child abuse and neglect, and on learning this I immediately informed the police. It took a

long time for the young person to find the courage to report it, but with our support and intensive counselling, she eventually did.

One of the first things we did to help her overcome her trauma was to make a little gravestone for the baby underneath the macadamia tree. When she was feeling the need to self-harm she would sit under that tree and talk to the gravestone for hours. It gave her closure and a great deal of comfort.

It took her a long time to feel free from her past and finally find peace. But a year ago she called to wish me a Merry Christmas and to tell me how thankful she was that we were there for her during one of the darkest moments in her life. She went on to tell me she is now married with two beautiful children and that she has become a primary school teacher. I still fight back the tears to this day remembering what she said next; she told me she wants to help all children have a better life, just like what we did for her.

— Maggie, YOTS Youth Worker

He sleeps on friends’ couches when he can. When he can’t, he meets

strangers on the street or uses a dating app to hook up with guys nearby. I’m worried he’s not being safe. He’s so small and I’m not sure he can protect himself if he got in any trouble.

Last night I found him curled up in a fire escape. He couldn’t find a place to stay and this was the best he could do. When he looked up at me to say hello I could tell he was really hurting. It’s nearly Christmas and his friends say they can’t have him around this time of year – they are spending Christmas with family only and there isn’t enough room for him.

I’ve reached out to his parents to see if we can work things out. I said it would be nice for the whole family to be together at Christmas. But they don’t want anything to do with him since he came out to them as gay.

He has no one at ChristmasHe is rake thin, extremely pale. Life on the streets has aged him. He’s 18 but looks so much older.

Every time I see him I ask if he wants me to get a bed for him at the refuge. And every time he says “no thanks, I’m ok”. I know he’s not ok. I see how terrible he looks, how much he’s suffering. I know he’s not safe. But every time I see him I will always say hello and ask him how he is. I offer him something to eat from the Food Van and a bed for the night at a nearby refuge. And one of those nights I hope he will finally say he needs my help.

I’ll be there for him however long it takes.

— Gary, Street Walk Manager

Safety

I was 17 at the time. I had dropped out of school and was staying out late doing stupid

stuff with my mates. Nothing really bad, but nothing really good either, I guess.

I remember it was a Friday night when it happened. I just arrived home from being out and one of the boys came up to my house. He was really upset and said there had been a massive car accident. One of our mates had passed away.

Everything was blurry after that. My whole world seemed to crumble in front of me as he was talking to me and the last thing I could hear him say was something about a police chase.

I didn’t think things could get any worse until we arrived at the scene. Not only had one friend passed away, but two of our mates had lost their lives.

It tore me apart and brought me to my knees. I was so distraught and angry and most of my friends felt the same way. Someone stealing a car doesn’t mean they should end up dead. It didn’t make sense.

There were around 150 of us at the scene, mainly teenagers including myself. We were all mourning the deaths of those kids. We were overcome with grief for the loss of our

A second chanceI grew up in Sydney’s south-west in a working class suburb – it’s a pretty poor part of Sydney with a lot of housing com-missions but our community’s tight-knit and everyone looks after each other.

brothers, drinking to numb the pain, trying to process what had just happened.

Then all of a sudden three cop cars arrived to break up the crowd. We all scattered, running as fast as we could to get away, but our grief and anger remained. We didn’t think those police made the right decision and our voices needed to be heard.

After that, things just spiralled out of control – it ended up being a massive riot that went on for three days straight. We were out on the streets, throwing bricks and bottles. We even set fire to one of the police cars with a cocktail bomb. Quite a few people on both sides got hurt and ended up in hospital.

I was one of the young people who got arrested. Sitting in the police station for 9 hours, I had a lot of time to think about where I was going in life.

But I didn’t know what I could do about it. I hadn’t finished school, I didn’t have any work experience and now I’d been arrested. Where could I really go from here?

I see so many kids who have grown up like me under the same circumstances – coming from

Belonging

a family struggling to make ends meet, having problems at school, hanging out all hours of the night and getting into trouble. You feel stuck with that life with no hope of escape. And you feel angry about it.

If it wasn’t for Farvs, I would have ended up in jail, I know it. And I see so many young people who go in and out of the justice system like this revolving door: they come out, they end up on the streets, they reoffend, they go back to jail again. That could have been me. I’m so lucky Farvs was there for me.

When a few of us were arrested, Farvs got involved and argued with the police we should be given another chance. They ended up letting us go and Farvs brought us to Youth Off The Streets, the charity he had been running to help homeless and disadvantaged kids.

It was here he told us that there’s no such thing as a bad kid, only bad circumstances. I believe that to this day that no kid is beyond help.

The turning point for me was when Farvs took us on a trip to the Philippines to see how other teenagers live. Here I was thinking “yeah, free holiday!” but seeing the way some of these kids live was a real wake up call.

We visited this prison where children are put in cells with the adults. There was so much sexual abuse and violence going on. One of the prisoners openly told us he “has that 8-year-old whenever I want”. To see these poor kids and the horrors they experience day in day out, it really opened up my eyes. And although in Australia we don’t put children in cells with adults, there are many issues in our society that we need to address. So much pain and suffering, often behind closed doors.

Young people need support, someone who cares about them and looks out for them. Many kids don’t have that in their lives and when they come into contact with Youth Off The Streets, we’re often all the family they have.

When I got back to Sydney, Farvs asked me if I wanted to become a trainee youth worker. That was more than 10 years ago now and I’ve worked at YOTS as a senior youth worker ever since. I found my true calling because there were people out there who believed in me.

That second chance I got changed my life. Farvs saw the good in me, that I had potential and I’ll be forever grateful for that.

He’s always told me I don’t owe him anything, so instead I pay it forward to help other kids – kids who need someone to understand what they’re going through, believe in them and never give up.

— Chris, YOTS Youth Worker

Potential

T o me, the idea of homelessness was limited to what you could see, and that was people

sleeping rough on the streets.

During my first night of Street Walk I met with Gary, the Street Walk Manager at Youth Off The Streets and we went into Sydney’s CBD. We came across lots of different people, most of which were teenagers.

Some of these kids had a home to go back to but for some reason or another preferred to linger on the streets until late. Some were couch surfers, some were in transitional accommodation and a few slept in tents under a bridge.

Most young people we encountered knew Gary and some of the YOTS youth workers. That trust they had built with our staff meant they felt comfortable enough to have a chat with us and share their experiences.

Each person had a unique story; there was no one reason why these young people were homeless. Some were struggling with alcohol or other drug dependence, others with domestic and family violence.

A lot of the time, it was a number of factors that ultimately meant that their home was no longer a safe place for them. Gary supports these young people by checking in on them regularly, building a trusting relationship with them, and providing them with alternatives such as accommodation or referrals should they want it.

My experience doing Street Walk with Youth Off The Streets was overwhelmingly positive when I see all

The invisible homelessBefore volunteering for Youth Off The Streets’ Street Walk service, my interaction with the city’s homeless population was limited to the occasional coin donation I dropped while impatiently waiting for the lights to change at a busy Sydney intersection.

the great work our youth workers are doing. But it was also a huge learning experience for me. I learned that homelessness is a multifaceted problem. Rough sleeping is only one aspect. Other more “invisible” types of homeless can include couch surfing, people living in tents or cars, and others staying in refuges.

But no matter where a homeless young person stays, that feeling of belonging is never there for them. They never know how long they can stay in one place, when they’ll be asked to move on, when they have to escape from danger.

That night doing Street Walk really gave me a glimpse into the harsh realities of youth homelessness. And I discovered how important it is that our youth workers have regular contact with these young people.

Every day these kids deal with such uncertainty and a very deep sense of loneliness. That’s why we make sure we’re there for them. Us being there for them is particularly important around Christmas – a time that’s meant to be celebrated with loved ones. When these young people don’t have a home or a family to turn to, we’re the one thing they can depend on and we never ever give up on them.

There are a lot of reasons why young people become homeless but there is one constant: not a single young person is homeless by choice. — Sara, YOTS Volunteer

Beth had a physical disability and I don’t think they were really prepared for someone who needed so much extra support. Her relationship with her foster family eventually broke down and her mum didn’t want her to come back home, so she ended up on the streets.

She was at Sydney’s Central Station when I found her – hanging out with other homeless kids at night. There’s safety in numbers.

There are usually so many people at Central at most hours, especially around Christmas – commuters travelling to and from work, groups of friends heading to the city for a night out, people doing their Christmas shopping, couples going out for dinner or tourists in Sydney sightseeing.

They all go about their business unaware how many people don’t have a home to go to that night or a bed to sleep in. These kids don’t have a job to commute to, or money to have a nice night out. The train station is their home. The ground is their bed.

Young people who are sleeping rough avoid sleeping at night because it isn’t safe. There are a lot of predators waiting for these kids at the train station – anywhere really – ready to take advantage of them. Within days of being on the streets, many kids are drugged, raped, bashed. They get the kids addicted to drugs and force them into prostitution.

It’s too dangerous to be alone at night, so the kids hang around in large groups looking out for each other. The problem is, they end up on drugs just to try and stay awake all night and cope with their circumstances.

Most of the kids know me – I’ve been doing Street Walk for over 20 years, and I think I’m one of the few adults they can really trust. They know that if they need a bed for the night, something to eat or

Beth homelessTrust

There was this young girl, Beth* - she came from a really poor background and her parents were both drug addicts. She was removed from home at a young age and placed into foster care, but she didn’t really bond with her foster family.

anything they need help with, they can come to me and I’ll do whatever I can to sort it out.

I give them my mobile number and they can call me if they’re ever in trouble. Sometimes they don’t have enough credit on their mobiles so I try calling them every so often to check in and see they’re ok.

Beth found it very difficult to get into refuges because they were convinced she was on drugs. It was actually her disability that made her appear under the influence. She had body tremors and slurred speech, seemed irritable a lot of the time, or would have these outbursts. The people who run these refuges are often over-worked and only have a split-second to decide who can stay and who will be too much of a risk to young people’s safety.

I would go with Beth to the refuge and explain her circumstances which helped her get into the place. But those times when she was allowed to stay, the other young people there used to single her out. It all became too difficult for her to stay there, so she ended up sleeping rough for a number of years.

I think a lot of people underestimated Beth and thought that because she was homeless and disabled, they could just treat her like dirt and get away with it. She’d dealt with that all her life. But she’s proved them all wrong. She ended up getting a property through the Department of Housing. She’s been living there for two years, paying rent, keeping the place clean and tidy. She’s doing really well and I’m so proud of her. She’s come such a long way.

— Gary, YOTS Streetwalk Manager

Proving them wrong

A call that saved a lifeI run our aftercare program which looks after about 250 kids. Well when I say “kids”, they’re not kids, they’re technically adults, but we do whatever we can to help young people, wherever they are in life, whatever support they need.

As part of this, I hold a reunion every year and invite all the kids to attend

so we can have a catch-up. It’s a great way for them to open up about any issues they have and reconnect with old friends.

It was during this reunion that one of the young people came up to me. I remember I used to ring this kid once a fortnight just to check-in and I would send him an SMS every week.

He said “Kylie can I speak with you? Do you remember the day you called me?”

“Of course”, I replied, trying to rack my brain to recall the conversation. I make a lot of calls to young people, so the memory of each one was a bit hazy. Then I remembered there was a day where I got this feeling he was in trouble, so I called him out of the blue. We’d had a fairly normal conversation, but he wasn’t all that talkative. At the end he told me “it’s really good to hear from you” and hung up.

He went on to say “That day you called

me, I was on Anzac Bridge ready to jump. I was standing

there looking down at the water far below thinking of ending it all. I don’t know how long I’d been there when all of a sudden my phone rang. It was you.”

“I hadn’t told you where I was or what I was about to do. But you called right then to check to see how I was doing. And I’ll never forget the words you said to me.

“You said ‘Don’t forget that you have people who love you and we’re always here for you no matter what. Remember that no matter what, there are people here who care’.

“I knew that day that if I jumped, I would really hurt you guys and you had all done so much for me. I walked away and changed my life that very day you called me. I will never ever feel like I’m alone and all is lost because I know you guys will always be there for me. And I want to make sure I’m around for a long time so I can always be there for you too.”

He really did change his life that day. I’m just so relieved I called him when I did.

— Kylie, YOTS Youth Worker

Care

YOU CAN MAKE MIRACLES HAPPEN THIS CHRISTMAS.

$80can give 40 homeless kids a hot meal this Christmas and

help break through the barriers of loneliness

and isolation

Your generosity can give vulnerable young people the things they need most this festive season – food, shelter, warmth and belonging.

W ith no family and no home to turn to, homeless and disadvantaged kids are often reminded just how little they

have. What should be a joyous time is instead lonely, stressful and traumatic.

Your kindness can change that. A generous gift today will show young people that there are people who do care, and who will never give up.

Support

Ways to support PHONE

1800 062 288

SA

FETY AND SHELTER

ONLINE

youthoffthestreets.com.au/donate

MAIL

Reply Paid 6025, Alexandria, NSW 2015

$360can provide 8 young people with vital support over Christmas like counselling to improve mental

health and battle drug or alcohol addiction

$1,170can help reach up to 30

homeless or disadvantaged kids in crisis who need access

to food, shelter, hygiene support or medical attention

DRUG AND ALCOHOL SUPPORT

COUNSELLING AND SUPPORT