We’ve just released our Programs report detailing the impacts and results of our various programs across Teen Challenge Tasmania as at April 2024.
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Hope Costumes & Thrift Store is getting close to closing for the day and the question drifts across the shop “I know I’m totally over thinking this like a million times but do you think I need to do anything else to this display?”. I smile because I know that to even verbalise that out loud in the shop shows enormous growth and trust that…..
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It’s been a tough day, week even. Sometimes our best laid plans, our hopes for others circumstances, just don’t work out do they? We struggle to make sense of what we are doing and then we are given a glimpse of the real purpose behind our ministry or relationships we are building…….
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We sit down in the cafe and start chatting, she tells me about herself and her past and she repeatedly says she has met me before. Troubled that I should know her, we keep chatting whilst I scan my brain for the connection. Then she mentions NotEvenOnce our Alcohol & other Drug education program. I asked her if she saw us present at her school?…
“You used to come to our school each year with our Mental health day. I would come to your stand and do the quizzes and the games”
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talking about motorbikes, family, new living arrangements, girlfriends and then the young man stops and looks deeply at the other man. The older one notices the change in pace and asks “Are you ok mate?”
“I was a bit of shit to you wasn’t I?” he responds honestly “Yeah you were.”
“I put you through quite a bit didn’t I?” the older man answers “Yes you did but it’s ok, that’s what young people do sometimes isn’t it?”
“You always were straight with me, you told me as it is”
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my back pocket starts to vibrate with an incoming call. When I answer it is the mum that had requested contact. “Hi, my son, year 12, was at a seminar you delivered this week and I would really like to know what you talked about in your seminar. He came home and wouldn’t stop talking about what you spoke to them about on Vaping…
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Watching and working alongside young people within this environment is an absolute encouragement, that this is what we need to persist with, little things are big things in the lives of some of our young people within this setting. Talking to customers, making eye contact, learning to take an order with multiple components, cleaning up, presentation awareness, these have been areas of significant challenge for many.
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Our beautiful young people from within the Hope Cafe Project were in force, serving up delicious food and drinks to our guests. Please enjoy the images from our Grand Opening night in May below..
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It’s a chilly day outside, customers are browsing through the racks & shelves in our Hope Costumes & Thrift Store with background music drifting through the area. From the back depths of the store comes a blood curdling “Grrrrrrr, Arrrhhh, Grrrrr” looking up with intial concern I seen a pirate charging…..
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Sometimes big things are shared amongst the group as the young people have developed significant trust and feel safe within the space the team has created. Through their art they process challenges, explore choices and consequences, express emotions and develop processes or tools to build resilience in their lives. Many times the group itself helps the individual, at times wrapping around the one hurting in encouragement, present, supportive, silence when needed, acknowledgment of pain and laughter too.
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A long held dream, to open a Cafe for Teen Challenge Tasmania as a social enterprise and a real life training ground for young people to learn hospitality in a supportive environment no matter what struggles they may be facing and to connect with our community on a different level.
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The more I went into work I was looking at the people around me and the positive environment I was in and then looking at my life outside the shop and I started to want to change. I mean working in this place that helps people and me doing what I was doing wasn’t right…….
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“May I speak with you for a minute?” I reply “Of course let’s sit down and chat.” We pull up a couple of chairs, side by side allowing them space, not directly looking at them as they grapple with how to get out what’s brought them up to the front to speak with someone they didn’t know 60 minutes ago. “There’s two things I’d like to talk to you about if that’s ok?” I nod and the dam walls burst…..
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I heard the door swing open from the rear of the shop as I was helping in the Cafe, fast footsteps and an excited voice calls out “Tanya, Tanya, guess what? I got a B in Maths today, I never get B’s I only get D’s”. I look into the face of a smiling participant in our Arrowsmith program. “Wow, that’s so exciting to hear. All your hard work is paying off isn’t it?” and I’m answered with an exuberant nod. “It just makes sense to me now.”……..
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“It was hard at the beginning when I started becuase I got really frustrated. As time went on the clocks started to make more sense. It helped with my memory, it helped in maths and I started to do better at school with all my work…..”
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The aroma of onions being caramelized and sizzling bacon fills the air, making our mouths water and tummies grumble admidst calls of “Don’t forget to grab the garlic”, “How hot does my pan need to be” and “Have you got any more knives?” bouncing around the newly restored Heritage listed art deco theatrette, now called The Upper Room. This is our very first Junior Master Cooking Class held to connect with our community, in the North Festival of Launceston in October. There’s far more to the story than young people learning to cook delicious….
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In reality some of these young people have only met each other in the last few months, some a little longer but if you knew just a smidge of their life journeys and the struggles they have and do face on a daily basis, you’d be in awe, as am I, of the power of personal growth, coping techniques…..
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We’re just as excited as the young people, not that holidays are nearly here, but for a very different reason, we’ve just received the results from their Achievement & Cognitive Assessments and this may be for the first time in some of these young people’s lives that they will get a report at the end of the year that shows significant improvement
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A beautiful sunny, slightly windy but warm late afternoon found us trundling an esky down the footpath to Riverbend Park to secure one of the well equipped BBQ shelters, battling the pesky seagulls intent on
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It was a very warm and windy Saturday morning. Christmas songs, chattering, nervous giggles, bagpipes warming up, diesel engines starting up and calls to “find your place” swirl around the children, adults and vehicles as the Launceston Christmas Parade starts to come to life
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