Awakening to plight
By Luke Stevenson, Year 11, St Augustine’s College
EIGHTEEN St Augustine’s College boys took part in the annual St Vincent de Paul sleep-out to raise funds and awareness for the homeless people of Cairns.
The sleep-out began at 7pm, on October 13, and the boys were offered a cup of hot soup for their evening meal, similar to that provided by soup kitchens to the homeless.
Needless to say, as growing boys, it didn’t take long for the pangs of hunger to set in.
“It was a learning experience,” said Year 11 student Joseph Musumeci.
“It makes me appreciate all I have and also just how easy it can be to slip into hard times.”
There were several team building activities and a presentation by Davina Dansie of the St Vincent de Paul Society.
Her presentation involved introducing the boys to homeless people by presenting a range of bags and suitcases and exploring their contents.
The boys were told each bag and set of belongings was the property of a particular homeless person who now lives on the streets.
We were shocked by this activity as the people that were linked to each of these bags were not who we imagined them to be at all.
“This was a true eye opener for me,” said Year 11’s Declan Miller. “It makes me feel I could be doing more to help this cause.”
The people are from a variety of backgrounds and one person in particular has most recently been working fly in/fly out in the mines and has now lost his job, house and family through the unfortunate change in his circumstances.
His case contained some very good quality business clothes, but that now represents all he has left.
“It was confronting to see how people can be well off and yet still end up homeless, often through no fault of their own”, said Campbell Rick of Year 7.
Apart from the bags activity being a huge eye opener for each of us, so too was the fact that only 10 per cent of the homeless population is visible and seen on the streets.
The rest are living between houses, in cars, couch-surfing or in homeless shelters.
We had first-hand experience of living without shelter for a night, sleeping in the school quad, in cardboard boxes, without blankets and pillows.
None of us had much sleep as we weren’t very comfortable.
“It wasn’t as easy as we thought,” said Campbell.
Each one of us was glad it was only one night and grateful for the fact that we had homes to return to.
We managed to raise more than a thousand dollars for this worthwhile cause and each of us is committed to doing the same next year.