August 2012

Letter from Rebecca Scott - August 2012

by Bec on 2 August 2012

Bec-August-Letter

August 2012

This month is significant because our 6th class of young people start working in this cafe – and the other two cafes STREAT run in inner Melbourne. Welcome Sarah, Hannah, Kate, Dean, Chelsea, Rayne, Juanita and Sinead.

Each of these young people will spend about 26 hours a week at STREAT over their six month program. Their typical week is:

  • Mondays – life and professional skills group work
  • Tuesdays – studying a Certificate I + II in Hospitality at William Angliss Institute
  • Wednesdays-Fridays – cafe work

We hope over the coming six months you will get to personally witness the amazing progress each of these young people will make. And please remember they’re here because you’re here. You and your community are helping fund the $15,000pp cost of their program (which includes their training fees, work with our hospitality mentors, support from our youth workers and Clinical Psychologist, uniforms, knife kits etc).

Thanks for being part of their journey this month!

Kind regards

Bec Scott

From little things do big things grow

by Bec on 21 August 2012

I believe Australian singer songwriter Paul Kelly was right when he said ‘from little things big things grow’. This week at STREAT we’re celebrating 250,000 meals and coffees made since opening our first small food cart on 15 March 2010. We’d particularly like to thank our customers for the role they’ve played in helping us reach this significant milestone. For stopping youth homelessness – one mouthful at a time.

This week we’ll be giving out $27 of ‘STREAT Cred(it)’ to a bunch of lucky customers across all of our sites for use at any of our sites.

Why $27?  It’s to honour one of the world’s most significant social entrepreneurs, Professor Muhammad Yunus, who started the global microfinance and microcredit systems by lending to a group of impoverished women in Jobra, Bangladesh.

In his words:

"I made a list of people who needed just a little bit of money. And when the list was complete, there were 42 names. The total amount of money they needed was $27. I was shocked."

On Friday I got to celebrate our 250,000 customer directly with Professor Yunus.  We’ll continue to be inspired by his vision to ‘create a poverty museum by 2030’.

With my thanks and gratitude to our customers and supporters for being part of the journey.

Bec

Go Class 6!

by Eloise on 30 August 2012

Hello STREAT fans!

A quick update on the goings on of Youth Programs.  Class 6 have now completed 9 weeks of their 24 week course with STREAT.  As well as finishing their Cert 1 and making a start on the Cert 2, the young people have completed over 100 hours of work experience at our sites, made a chicken schnitzel (amongst other things) in the kitchens at William Angliss and have all passed their first theory exam.

Very exciting stuff.  Vanessa and I have had such great feedback from young people and their workers - the kids are loving it at STREAT.  Other support workers are so pleased with the progress the young people are making.  Every little step is really so meaningful.  Yay for us!  Yay for Class 6!

The work experience pilot continues to be a huge success too.  Also, Class 5 are pumped for their graduation on 10th September.

Thanks for your support everyone!

Cheers

Eloise