Life Begins At...

The Retiree Magazine Summer 2011-12

Life Begins At.....

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CELEBRITY FEATURE wanted me to have that year off. But I remember my fi rst appointment… I had graduated teacher's college on my 21st birthday and in those days we used to receive obediences from our superiors. My superior walked in to my birthday and said he wasn't staying for my party because that meant he would have to stay for everyone's party, but he gave me my fi rst obedience and said I was going to Boys' Town. So on my 21st birthday I packed myself off as a young Brother to Boys' Town. When dad visited he looked at me and said, "Why the hell are you doing this? Why aren't you out having your own family instead of looking after other people's kids?" Because what he saw me doing was teaching 45 kids, and then my dormitory had 80 kids in it, so I was making sure the kids had made their beds, cleaned their teeth and had a shower. And my dad said, "Why are you doing this sort of stuff when you could have your own family?" And I said, "I really love these kids and I'm dedicating my life to these sorts of kids." After that my parents became quite proud of what I do. How did 'Youth Off The Streets' formerly come about? In 1976 and '77 I was a young Brother teaching at Boys' Town. There were 140 kids there, 365 days a year. In 1986 I was sent back as principal and Boys' Town had changed dramatically, they only had 40 kids, and the fi rst thing I had to do was expel a kid because his family had kicked him out. I thought, "How bizarre is 8 THE RETIREE SUMMER this?" We wouldn't take kids who didn't have some sort of family to lean on, which meant I had school holidays and weekends off for the fi rst time ever. While all the other priests went off motorbike riding or golfi ng, I started working on the streets of Sydney, particularly at Town Hall. During my last three years as Principal of Boys' Town I used to put the kids to bed, get an older priest just to sit there in case something went wrong, and I'd head to Town Hall to work with a group on the streets that were really violent. All the other charitable organisations wouldn't go anywhere near the Town Hall group because of their incredible violence. I really clicked with this group of kids and thought that this is something I want to do for the rest of my life. I begged and begged my superiors to release me from Boys' Town, which was hard for them because I was a young priest and no one else would take on the Boys' Town challenge, that's why I was put there… I went up to Boys' Town to spend fi ve years there, but I begged my superiors after the fi rst two years to allow me to go on the streets and work full-time with street kids, eventually after fi ve years they said I could go. At the time the Minister for Community Services, Virginia Chadwick, was visiting Boys' Town on a gala day. Splashed across the newspaper for those few years were kids on the streets, and photos of them sleeping on the steps of Town Hall, it was a real political issue. Ms Chadwick was speaking to me about what we call the chronically homeless, or hard-core kids, and how she wanted a program set up for them. I told her I was really well-connected to that target group and that I was really keen to do something. So she agreed to fund a house that would deal with the chronically homeless and we wouldn't be like other refuges, we wouldn't turn kids away after 11pm. Although we had 18 beds often we would have 40 kids in the house, and I lived in the garden shed at the back of the house, which was just a solid concrete building with no windows or anything, so it was perfect for me given I would get home at midnight or 4am and I wouldn't be woken up if I had to sleep in the morning. So that's how I started. I then had to get an auspicing body, and I went to St Vincent de

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