Within a period of eight months, UnitingCare West, a community service provider of the Uniting Church, has come into contact with over 180 families who are at risk of homelessness in Perth. That is over five families a week in crisis situations. Responding to this need, UnitingCare West opened the Family Foundations Service to support families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless in Perth and the surrounding suburbs.
Revive has previously reported on the relationship between All Saint’s Floreat Uniting Church and the people of Mowanjum, a remote Aboriginal community near Derby. Volunteers from the congregation have been running school holiday programs for the Mowanjum kids for several years now, in response to disturbing statistics on youth suicide in the area. The program has had a positive effect in Mowanjum, and people from the Floreat congregation are also seeing effects among their own community.
Following a visit to Scarborough in 2012 from UnitingWorld representative Lee-Anne Burnett, the Scarborough and Waterman’s Bay Congregations agreed to sponsor a student from the Indonesian province of Papua to be a part of a group of students undertaking a three-month intensive English language course in Perth early in 2013. A good grasp of English enhances the employment prospects for Papuans.