Community Services Excursions

Excursion - St.Vincent de Paul Society

This month in VET Community Services, the year one students have been studying diversity in the community. To provide context, the students visited the St Vincent de Paul Society warehouse in Altona North. The students have been studying diversity in our community, and community services that appeal to specific groups in our society. The St Vincent de Paul Society aims to lend a helping hand to those who need assistance – such as the homeless, those living in poverty and asylum seekers. 

The students had the opportunity to experience working as volunteers in the Altona North warehouse. They followed OHS procedures, interacted with the volunteers at the service and assisted with jobs. The students spent the day sorting clothing that had been donated to St Vinnies, and re-racked these clothes to be sold. The students enjoyed helping such a cause and many were inspired to go back and volunteer in future. The excursion allowed the students to put their learning into context, and have the opportunity to work within a community services industry.

Georgia Bettiol

Excursion - The BIG Issue 

The Year Two VET Community Services course requires the students to engage with the extended community. For the unit of competency ‘CHCCDE003 Work Within a Community Development Framework’, the students are required to develop an action plan that addresses a social issue. With a key focus on homelessness in Melbourne, on the 14th of May the class travelled to the city and visited The BIG Issue as well as explored city areas from the perspective of those who are less fortunate. 

In Year Two VET Community Services, we are currently studying a unit on working within a community development framework, which involves learning about social issues and how different community development framework’s aim to address these issues, as well as propose possible solutions to them. We as a class focus on these social issues in more of a community aspect, and what community workers can do to address them. In class we have mainly been focusing on the community issue of homelessness, and how prevalent it is in our society today. From this, we are being assessed on an action plan that we will create that will help to address specific issues associated with homelessness, such as hygiene, lack of food, lack of connection etc.

Being given the chance to go on this excursion to Enterprize Park and The Big Issue helped us to learn more about homelessness, and to see first-hand some of the issues associated with homelessness. Evidence shows that the main cause of homelessness in Melbourne is poverty and unemployment. 

The Big Issue, (which is a community development framework) gave us the opportunity to hear from a speaker who had previously been homeless. It helped my class and I gain insight into what homelessness is really like, as well as how lucky we are to have what we have. The Big Issue “helps people help themselves” by running social enterprises such as The Big Issue Magazine, Women’s Subscription Enterprise and the Community Street Soccer Program. All of these initiatives aim to help the homeless in one way or another. 

After visiting The Big Issue we walked to Enterprize Park where we could observe the circumstances and conditions many of the homeless people in Melbourne live in. Along the way we also observed the conditions of the streets of Melbourne and considered what it would be like for the homeless to have to live in these conditions. At Enterprize Park we completed group activities and discussions and reflected on homelessness as a whole. 

From hearing and seeing first-hand what homelessness is like, the class and I were able to gain insight into preparing for our action plan assessment, and made our desire to help those who are less fortunate even stronger.

Ysabelle Machuca