Year 12 VCAL Melbourne Immersion

The Year 12 Melbourne Immersion was such a great experience! As part of Senior VCAL we chose our theme for the Semester to be Mental Health and Homelessness. As a part of the research and community engagement aspect of the program we planned and organised a two-night immersion experience.

We worked with our teachers to contact organisations, book accommodation and plan the itinerary to maximise our time in Melbourne.

Through working with the fantastic service providers such as; Sacred Heart mission, The Big Issue Classroom, Salvation Army, Les Twentymen Foundation and St Vincent De Paul, I learnt how privileged we all are and how we can all do our part to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

One of the first activities I was involved in was helping homeless people in the community by providing meals which brought me a lot of joy. The amount of time, effort and care that is given by volunteers in these organisations is astounding.

I was blown away by the amount of food we helped to prepare. At the Sacred Heart Mission for example, they are preparing around 300 hot meals for lunch, and breakfast every day. When I was helping to serve the food to the clients I felt a little nervous at first, but soon found that the gratitude shown and the dignity that the clients were treated with made me feel secure.

I realised the difference that my smile could make – I might have been the only person to interact positively with that client that day. It made me feel humbled and honoured to be a small part of the process.

During the experience we had many presentations about what life is like living with homelessness. This included learning facts in relation to how many people were sleeping rough, had no food to eat or access to fresh water.

We explored different types of homelessness and I was really surprised by the number facts surrounding the issue of homelessness.

With these great organisations, people can get back on their feet, or at the very least have access to good food and day to day requirements.

The immersion was a really eye opening experience and one that I am certainly grateful for. For anyone interested we are screening our documentary with some live performance this coming Tuesday at GPAC as part of the Take Over program.

Thanks, Jordan