Give our kids a chance - Lions Australia
Give our kids a chance - Lions Australia
Give our kids a chance - Lions Australia
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June - July 2011<br />
BECOME THE FORCE FOR<br />
AUSSIE YOUTH<br />
Father Chris Riley’s emotional convention plea<br />
Father Chris Riley, founder and CEO of Youth<br />
Off The Streets, challenged <strong>Lions</strong> at the<br />
Launceston Convention to stand up for<br />
Aussie youth – especially those in dire<br />
circumstances.<br />
In a moving and confronting keynote address,<br />
Father Riley observed that <strong>Lions</strong> are in the perfect<br />
position to represent disadvantaged youth.<br />
“Please become the force for young people ...<br />
you guys have the power, you guys have the<br />
passion – and if you really commit to this I just<br />
think you might be<br />
able to change the<br />
lives of <strong>our</strong> young<br />
people,” he told<br />
the audience.<br />
As CEO of<br />
Youth Off The<br />
Streets, Father<br />
Riley oversees the<br />
operation of over 20 programs that employ 150<br />
people and involve more than 800 volunteers.<br />
<strong>Lions</strong>, he said, have the heart to tackle such a<br />
project. “Our <strong>kids</strong> are <strong>our</strong> greatest asset and<br />
someone needs to stand up for them ... we love<br />
<strong>our</strong> own <strong>kids</strong> but when it comes to youth as a<br />
group no-one really stands up to defend them.”<br />
In particular, he called on <strong>Lions</strong> to “get those<br />
young <strong>Lions</strong> leaders out there”, to show just how<br />
fantastic the youth of <strong>Australia</strong> can be.<br />
Father Riley chilled the audience with snapshots<br />
of just what many young people had to endure, of<br />
a seven-year-old girl who weighed just 9kg after<br />
being found dead on the NSW Central Coast (she<br />
was locked in a room with faeces and “her socks<br />
welded to her feet because they hadn’t been<br />
changed for so long”). Of a three-year-old boy<br />
being put into a suitcase and thrown into a duck<br />
pond, and of babies less than a year old being<br />
sexually assaulted.<br />
He told of visiting a NSW country centre where<br />
more than 40 girls under 14 had become pregnant<br />
to collect the Baby Bonus, and of a young boy<br />
being repeatly raped by his mother’s boyfriend.<br />
Father Riley, who was inspired in his crusade for<br />
youth after watching the 1931 movie Boys’ Town,<br />
highlighted the need to recognise that young<br />
people are not born bad but that horrific<br />
circumstances sometimes turn them that way.<br />
He<br />
“You guys have the power, you<br />
guys have the passion – and if<br />
you really commit to this I just<br />
think you might be able to change<br />
the lives of <strong>our</strong> young people”<br />
painted a<br />
grim picture<br />
of how<br />
widespread,<br />
the problem<br />
is. “We<br />
discovered<br />
that in<br />
juvenile detention centres in NSW, which had<br />
about 450 <strong>kids</strong> in them and are always full, 48<br />
percent of the population are Aboriginal.<br />
“They make up two percent of the youth<br />
population in NSW. Twelve percent have an<br />
intellectual disability. These are <strong>kids</strong> who should be<br />
in disability services, not in detention centres.<br />
“Thirty six percent of the girls and 25 percent of<br />
the boys are what we call State Wards, or out of<br />
home care. They are the most brutalised <strong>kids</strong> in<br />
this country. In NSW, up to 160 <strong>kids</strong> are killed in<br />
their families every year. And these <strong>kids</strong> are under<br />
the care usually of adults who receive notification<br />
after notification but don’t step in to do anything.”<br />
After Father Riley’s address, a cheque for<br />
$6000 (including $5000 from T1 and $1000 from<br />
the Multiple District) was handed over and by<br />
convention’s end a lot more was on the way.<br />
CONVENTION STANDOUTS<br />
▲ News of $75,000 being awarded by LCIF to the <strong>Lions</strong> Spinal Cord Fellowship for a high-tech<br />
microscope to boost research at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melb<strong>our</strong>ne<br />
▲ The Ted Horwood Award for best story in the Lion magazine being awarded to Lion Dr Stephen<br />
Weinstein (<strong>Lions</strong> Club of Mudgeeraba) for his story “Operation Kiribati”, about a medical team’s fight<br />
to counter cervical cancer in the Pacific island nation.<br />
▲ The Syd Packham Award for best PR or publicity program going to V1-4’s Jill Qualtrough for her<br />
long-standing efforts in bringing <strong>Lions</strong> doings to the general public.<br />
TOP LEO TOM<br />
Launceston provided an emotional<br />
highlight for Leo of the Year winner Tom<br />
Porter, here being congratulated after his<br />
popular award.<br />
After delighting convention attendees with<br />
his announcement of his ambition of<br />
becoming the youngest district governor in<br />
Q2, Tom dedicated his win to his mother<br />
Megan who is suffering from cancer and to<br />
Queensland Leo Co-ordinator Toni Lanphier<br />
who had guided him through the contest.<br />
Other finalists included public speaking<br />
winner Kara Barker (Tasmania), Madeleine<br />
Gillespie (Western <strong>Australia</strong>), Paul Watts<br />
(NSW) and Amber Gray (Victoria).<br />
BELOW: Leo Chairman Marty Peebles with Dale<br />
“Toby” Crawford (left) and DG elect Peter Lamb<br />
(right), awarded Graham Pearce Leo Awards for<br />
their long service to the organisation.<br />
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