Initially when I became apart of the ActNow Incubator (Actnow's youth advisory board), I guess I felt like my action had to be big and really large-scale to be successful.
However, I quickly realised that with Uni, paid employment, and my existing voluntary commitments, that the plan I had wasn’t going to be possible to complete in 12 weeks.
I had initially decided to increase the awareness of homelessness in
Victoria.
I was going to do this by making a myspace page, volunteering at the Sacred Heart Mission in St Kilda, organising a food drive to donate goods to the mission so that they can put together food parcels for the people most in need. I also wanted to organise a fundraising event.
However I had to refine this process as the incubator progressed.
I still did lots of reading to educate myself, so that if people were interested, I could educate them. I also made the myspace, and although we only had about 70 friends max, lots of people seemed keen on learning more.
During the process, I have made 2 visits to the mission to volunteer and I will be going again on Sunday. I also hope to continue volunteering every month for the future, after the incubator finishes.
I found it very difficult getting donations from shops, and the store managers and owners were very hard to chase up. So I ended up using the $50 Inspire gave me to buy groceries and some family and friends also donated.
On Sunday, I will be taking these goods down to the mission when I volunteer, where I am sure, they will be put to good use.
I have found that some of the barriers for me in this case were
1) Time constraints, I’m at uni 15 hours a week and I work another 10 or more hours at Safeway, depending on the week
2) Cooperation with people at stores, I found it hard asking for donations
3) Other commitments as well as the incubator which I had to contribute to.
Throughout the last 12 weeks, I have had some challenges with my action, but the time spent in
Sydney for the workshop far outweighed the negative times that I have had whilst completing my action. Also, the volunteering at the
Mission, actually seeing how many people the mission helps on a daily basis was truly inspiring.
I have had a great 12 weeks,
Cheers,
Jen
J
