It’s not a sleepover if you can’t go home
TV Presenter James Mathison on The Couch for Oasis Youth Support Network. (Photo courtesy of Oasis Youth Support Network)
The Salvation Army’s 2013 Couch Project has raised more than $25,000 in its first week, with people from all over Australia including television presenter James Mathison, signing up.
The Salvation Army’s Oasis Youth Support Network’s The Couch Project is a fundraising and awareness campaign for youth homelessness and couch surfing, raising money for crisis and transitional accommodation services at Oasis in Surry Hills.
The campaign culminates with a huge sleepover on couches across Australia on 14 September.
As part of The Couch Project, celebrities and supporters spent time on a couch in a purpose-built cube in front of Sydney’s Customs House. Television presenter James Mathison slept in the cube overnight and says he did it to gain a better understanding of the situations many young people find themselves in.
“It’s something that they face not just for one night, they face night after night,” he says.
“I can go and sleep on a couch in the cube for one night and then I can go home to my family and to my warm bed in the middle of winter – and that’s not a choice they get.”
Of the 44,000 homeless young Australians, many start their spiral into homelessness by “couch surfing” – sleeping on the couch in the homes of friends, acquaintances, drug dealers or worse.
“It’s not a sleepover if you can’t go home,” says the Director of Oasis, The Salvation Army’s Major Keith Hampton. “The public needs to know that couch surfing is one of the first steps in the cycle of youth homelessness.”
To find out more about The Couch Project head to: thecouchproject.com.au
And to see James Mathison in the cube check out: theprojecttv.com.au/video.htm?vid=2573409069001
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