The Oasis Movie - Youth Homelessness in Australia
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Every night across Australia 22,000 teenagers are homeless.
I recently wrote an article about Homelessness in Australia. A part of the inspiration for that article was not just the fact that I am involved with the community sector but that I saw a fantastic documentary on free-to-air television here just recently: Oasis.
The documentary is about the Oasis Youth Support Network for homeless young people in central Sydney. The language, the behaviour and the bare and brutal realities of the lives of the young people involved are pretty harsh - violence, drugs, alcohol, prison, and so on. When the documentary was screened here on the ABC, it was followed by a live forum with Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek and representatives of several community sector organisations and interests - including Salvation Army Captain Paul Moulds (who runs the Oasis Youth Support Network). The forum audience was made up of a variety of people including some of the homeless people who had featured in the documentary. It is also a story of hope, resilience and overcoming all odds.
The Oasis movie is quite the eye-opener and although I am not personally too surprised by some of the things it reveals, it is no less shocking. The Federal Government of Australia has declared that homelessness is one of it's priorities. They can talk the talk, now its time to see if they can walk the walk. There is a trailer available for the film. The National Youth Commission’s Australia’s Homeless Youth Report is also available. Get involved !
