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13th February 2012 by MORE

Deciding what to do for work experience is relatively easy for someone who wants to be a doctor or a lawyer. For someone like me, who wants to go into international relations and then work for the UN, it wasn’t a straight forward choice. I knew however that for my year 10 work experience I really wanted to do something that would help me to understand one of Australia’s greatest social justice and humanitarian issues of homelessness. My first day of work experience allowed me to do just that. I was privileged enough to be able to do some work on the front line at Streetlevel – Salvation Army homeless facility.

Helping out with breakfast, I found myself talking to some amazing, inspiring men and women who had overcome extreme adversity. The visitors at Streetlevel were rather confronting at first to someone who had lived a very sheltered and privileged life on the Northern Beaches. However it wasn’t long before all outward appearances were forgotten and many of the visitors were kind enough to share with me their heart-breaking life stories.

One woman is a recovering alcoholic who has since written a book on the reality of homelessness. Another has plans to go to university to study science and the arts and eventually go into scientific research. There was an inspirational woman who due to her love of Christ and her love of her children has now been clean for 12 years. Taking numerous children who are living on the streets under her wing, they now all proudly call her mum. She explained that she would buy them food or a drink or give them a place to stay but she would not give them money to buy drugs.

These amazing people, while having faced and conquered demons are not honoured as idols like our sports stars. I am so thankful to The Salvation Army for giving me the opportunity to meet these beautiful people who I would have never otherwise met or been inspired by.

My work experience has not only allowed me to be inspired by many but has also broken down misconceptions and prejudices I had unknowingly been fostering about homelessness. It opened my eyes to the complexity of the issue and illustrated that anyone could become homeless. Most of all however, it demonstrated to me the importance of faith and hope to those who are struggling and how it is faith and hope that has allowed them to beat a drug or alcohol addiction.

After seeing the heart break that so many of these people have suffered, it was inspirational to be able to observe the important role The Salvation Army has played in the decisions of those who have turned their lives around. It’s comforting to know that the downtrodden and disadvantage are not completely forgotten by society and that there are organisations such as The Salvation Army who are working hard to help so many.

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