CHARITY
THAT EMPOWERS

Our aim in our projects is to foster people's ability to care for themselves, to make choices in their lives and to give back to their community.  It is a great joy to see someone who has lived on the street, months later serving others in the BackShed café.  We do not see ourselves as experts fixing people's problems but friends sharing life with them and facilitators fostering their abilities.

This aim is evident in each of our programs:

The Terrace - a home for the homeless

Women's Space - safety and an opportunity for change for street-based female sex-workers

Cleaners with a Mission - employment opportunities and training for the long-term unemployed

Inner City Gambling Counselling - individual and group counselling for problem gamblers

Community Development - building community in public housing estates amongst urban indigenous communities

Gatherings - fostering the performance art talents of those with a story to tell

Our objective and strategies are:

Objective:
To establish and develop appropriate programs, projects and activities that empower and meet the needs of people in the inner city experiencing poverty, homelessness, abuse, addictions, long-term unemployment, loneliness, cultural alienation, and other forms of destitution and marginalisation.

Strategies:

• Identify and foster of the capacity of the community to care for its own members.
• Ongoing research to identify unmet needs in the inner city and develop appropriate and sustainable strategies in response.
• Development of strategies that identify and address the underlying causes of disempowerment and inequitable distribution of resources (structural, communal and individual) in order to meet human need with an emphasis on justice and equality.