Guest Speaker: PP Warwick Smith AG District 9455 and member of Heirisson Rotary Club.TOPIC: Homeless Hub and the Eye Contact Photographic Exhibition.The Heirisson club is based in East Perth where homelessness is a very real issue. When asked to see if Rotary could assist the club found there were a huge number of agencies and community support groups working on homelessness, including many Rotary clubs with projects, initiatives and contributions in the homelessness space. The Homeless Hub function is to have Rotary working as a coherent entity to bring its singular and unique capabilities to bear on the Homelessness issue - aligned to WA State and Agency Homelessness strategies. Eye Contact was created before the Homelessness Hub was officially set-up and it was created as a catalyst to change peoples perception of the homelessness problem. Nobody on the street chooses to be there and results from a wide range of reasons that includes domestic violence, senior women that have split from partners and being left with nothing, people that have been in care until they have turned 18, increasing unemployment, and many more. The Eye Contact Photographic exhibition was created to have the opportunity to have conversations to increase public awareness that homelessness is about people. It's a photographic exhibition of 24 portraits of people who have been homeless. They include people of both genders, various age groups and categories, different backgrounds and ethnicity and so on. This is a problem that can affect anyone and the stories that go with them is what is taken to schools and community centres to help change peoples' awareness of some of the issues. There are a number of Rotary homeless projects that we can get involved with such as 'Eye Contact' that will be exhibiting in Melville in April 2021; the Foodbank 'Give a Feed' coming up again in November; the 'My Homes' project, just to name a few. More information can be found on the 'Homeless Hub Home Page'. Andrew Bower is coordinating speakers on some of the projects that we might like to get involved with. Warwick is wearing various hats and has requested that we let him know if we become aware of any Rotary-related initiatives in the homeless/disadvantage persons space, any health-related activities or environmental projects/events, as they are trying to collate basic details (What, Who, When etc) and promote awareness across Rotary and into the wider community. Warwick has provided an updated presentation that was sent to him after our meeting for your interest. |