Lucky or Unlucky?
You decide.
The MaraWay supplies a bus every morning to swing by crisis accommodation centres, pick up the kids and take them to school. It’s called the ‘Let’s Get Back to School’ program. We deliver them to a safe place for the day and feed them a healthy breakfast. In their world, that’s fricken lucky!
Without this simple, practical initiative, many of these kids would be on the streets all day, with no decent meal and the potential to be exposed to drugs, alcohol or violence in some form. There’s absolutely nothing lucky about that.
The program was introduced in 2017 and has already produced amazing results. School attendance went from 40% to over 90%, and reading skills jumped up an average of 5 levels in just the first few weeks.
And a bonus - a significant local business in the area reported to us that theft and petty crime at their premises had dropped by 70% since the program started!
Not only have the kids benefited, but it’s given their parents the time and motivation to seek out our support at the Community Hub. We’ve been able to help many gain skills and employment, move into permanent housing and create safe and more stable environments for their families.
The parents seeking support are breaking their cycle of crisis and welfare and becoming role models for their children and others in the community.
Our goal is to keep building the numbers of these success stories and expand the program to other suburbs and schools.
It’s not a government funded program. It’s paid for by The MaraWay and a group of wonderful MaraWay Partners from our local community, which means it doesn’t have to stop and start every time there’s a change in government funding.
More importantly, we can adapt on the turn of a sixpence to suit the needs of the kids.
It’s a program that provides some stability in their very unstable life. It makes sure they get a chance of an education and opportunities for their future. It focusses on prevention because it’s better than the cure.
It’s a different way of creating luck, where little luck exists.
It’s The MaraWay.
