Armadale TAFE lecturer Lynne Hendry (left) and participants in the homeless youth awareness project at the morning tea held recently.
Camera IconArmadale TAFE lecturer Lynne Hendry (left) and participants in the homeless youth awareness project at the morning tea held recently. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Armadale TAFE students visit MOMO agency in quest to help homeless youth

Tim SlaterComment News

A GROUP of Armadale TAFE students have an increased awareness of the needs of homeless youth after taking part in a 10-week community services project.

Armadale Campus project co-ordinator Lynne Hendry said the students visited the Moving Out Moving On (MOMO) agency at the Parkerville Family and Youth Care centre and the Swan Youth Hostel to identify the needs of young homeless clients.

“These needs included providing young homeless clients of MOMO with personal care packages, as well as raising awareness of young homeless peoples issues in the community of Armadale,” Ms Hendry said.

PerthNow Digital Edition.
Your local paper, whenever you want it.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

Ms Hendry developed a framework before the students took ownership of the homeless youth awareness project, including brainstorming ways to raise awareness, developing care packages and how to raise money from donations.

The students recently held a morning tea, attended by more than 60 people to highlight the skills they learnt.

“They developed all the promotional materials, the visuals for the location of event and the event itself,” she said.

It included presentations, music and storytelling by artists and a street musician who had been homeless for most of his life.

Ms Hendry has many years of experience working in community development in Australia, Europe and the United Kingdom.

She is passionate about exposing community services students to real issues and needs of agencies and communities.

“Since the event, all students involved have been presented with letters of thanks from MOMO and they have learnt many skills from being involved in a ‘real life’ project,” Ms Hendry said.

“Students doing this sort of learning via real projects, have the skills of how to link theory from the classroom to the practice in the field , and this is a valuable lesson for any student.”

The MOMO agency was established in 2007 to work directly with young people aged 15-21 who were homeless or living in crisis accommodation.