There is Hope this Christmas



This year Project Youth are running a campaign to raise money for young people doing it tough. Each year we provide a voucher to all young people in our care to wish them a Happy Christmas. For the first time many of our young people have asked for Coles and Woolworths voucher so they can buy food instead of buying themselves a treat or a present. We know it is a hard time for many in our community, however we are still reaching out to ask of you can provide support we would be very grateful. We would love to be able to provide both food vouchers and present vouchers to young people facing disadvantages this Christmas.

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It’s been a big year at Project Youth 

Thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout 2023. We cannot do this alone and it is only with the support of our partners, community and stakeholders that we can provide hope, care and healing to so many young people. This year we supported 2,400 young people across Georges River, Sutherland Shire and Bayside areas. The main reasons young people needed support included family violence and breakdown, homelessness and mental health issues. We helped young people recover over $42,000 of debt and supported 149 young people with education and employment pathways. We supported 419 young people with housing and homelessness support which included 20,535 occasions of support and the provision of 22,700 night of accommodation. We do this because we firmly believe that all young people, deserver the opportunity to thrive despite the disadvantages they may face. 

You can read more in our annual report, click here to access 

Annual Report

Big plans ahead

This year we started our planning for our next strategy. At the end of June 2024 our current strategy comes to an end so we are starting to create our next one based on our experiences, lessons, feedback and outcomes over the past 5 years. Central to this planning are the voices of young people with lived experiences. At our recent strategic planning day, we had the privilege of listening to 5 young people with lived experiences and they shared so many valuable insights with us. One quote the really stayed with us was:

“We can only make the next generation better if we hear from young people themselves. Project Youth saved my life - without them I don’t know where I would be – they got me a house, are the reason I’m clean and staying off drugs, they helped get on my feet completely, and constantly supported me. We often feel like we don’t have a say, it is great to know we have a support system and thank you for letting us have a say and not you controlling it all, this is amazing.”

 We are excited to introduce Ethan our new Lived Experience Role

We would like to introduce you to Ethan who is the new Lived Experience Lead at Project Youth. This is a new role we have created to ensure young people’s voices are central to our planning, decisions, governance and strategy. Ethan has experience of being in the foster care system and has faced numerous challenges in his life. He generously shares his story to help other young people find their voice and to be engaged in decision making and to have influence. In my first meeting with Ethan, he said “Everyone has a story to tell, they just need to be heard”. This sums up this new role perfectly and we can’t wait to see what he achieves. Ethan will be co-designing a lived experience strategy for Project Youth as well as leading on a budget with a panel of young people to create something innovative and new for Project Youth – stay tuned for more details in the future!

 A quote that sums up our year at Project Youth

A young person we are currently supporting in our housing program wrote this for Christmas and we wanted to share it with you:

“Even though Christmas is a time of bad memories and stress for many including myself, despite all that I am able to see Christmas is really about joy and giving, not about taking away, even though so many of us have had stuff taken away from us we still have the ability to give back no matter how small that is. It’s about keeping hope even when things are tough and reminding ourselves to have fun and with this in mind Christmas will always shine with that magical innocence of childhood. Just like rebuilding the snowman every year we start anew with a different Christmas every year just like different flavours of chocolate or the different seasons of storming, sunny or gusty.”

Wishing all our supporters, funders, partners and friends a happy holiday season.

 Stay safe and healthy and we can’t wait to partner with you all again in 2024!