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ABC: Guy Grossi: 'Heat program does a world of good'
The Age: Writing on wall for at-risk youth programs

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Don’t turn off HEAT

Port Phillip Leader
4 Jun 2013
The State Government is pulling funding from a vital St Kilda youth training program, which has transformed the lives of people like Republica apprentice chef Shane Wilson.read more...

Please don't stop pledging. We are aiming for $100,000.
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What is HEAT?

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HEAT helps young people who are not able to continue mainstream education. Our young people may be homeless, young parents or carers, depressed, or in general isolated from mainstream education for any reason.


Well, young people soon lose self-esteem and confidence and feel insecure in such conditions.
At HEAT, we offer award winning educational programs in Hospitality Training. We have a fully equipped kitchen and a qualified chef that helps young people develop skills in hospitality. We also have youth workers, who are skilled people who work with young people to help them regain confidence and self-esteem and gradually transition into a healthy life. Teachers and youth workers cooperate with each other to ensure all students find pathways to education or employment in related fields. We have even employed young people in our catering social enterprise.


Guy Grossi, restaurateur and Patron of HEAT says, “HEAT really makes a difference. The young people it helps are on the cusp of hopelessness and HEAT pulls them back to a place where they can cope with whatever life throws at them. It provides a long-term, indeed a life-time, solution.”


Why we need money?

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Even though we have works hard during past years to be less reliant on government funding, we are still funding part of our program expenses from government initiatives. Unfortunately, department of business and innovation have recently decided to discontinue $220,000 of funding to our program (and similar programs). To be able to continue helping young people, we need to raise $100,000 for the next six months of HEAT operations to be invested in a recently established “HEAT Transition Fund”. Our young people would get disappointed if we fail to do so.




So, how exactly this works?

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The program runs in 14 weeks during which our young people acquire the following skills and experience:
- Industry specific training
- Work readiness
- Personal and group support
- Work experience
HEAT also offers job services: we seek employment for our graduated young people and occasionally we employ them in our social enterprise. We also offer personalised post-program support, advice, referral and advocacy.


www.HEAT.org.au
www.SKYS.org.au