The COSMOS 40-Hour Challenge

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Ben Keri is scribbling on a notepad. “Being mute has shown me the difficulties of not having a voice in society.” The international development studies major accepted the challenge of Avondale College of Higher Education student mission club COSMOS to go 40 hours without hearing, seeing or talking. He writes of sitting with friends but feeling excluded from the conversation. “I now realise people in poor communities also have no voice. They are the destitute, and they often experience injustice.”

Rosemarie Southern and Karli Borresen’s faux speech and hearing impairments. Credit: Brenton Stacey.

The 40-Hour Challenge, October 19-21, not only raised awareness of the emotional and physical state of those with an impairment but raised more than $500 for Asian Aid’s Kollegal School for Speech and Hearing Impaired Children in India.

COSMOS president Ketannah Hope describes the challenge as “isolating,” which can be similar to life at college. “It’s easy to focus just on your study, so COSMOS helps me keep God’s message of love alive.”

Bachelor of Teaching (Secondary) student Krissie Hopkins reminds us as staff members and students how lucky we are. “We have a voice,” she says, “so we need to use it.”—with Megan Townend, public relations editorial intern, Avondale College of Higher Education

Avondale students learn about homelessness the hard way

Sonja Larsen
Editorial assistant, Connections
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

It is confronting: on any given night, 105,000 people in Australia are homeless, with nearly half of these under the age of 25. These statistics motivated two Avondale College of Higher Education students to raise awareness of the issue by spending a night outside covered only by cardboard boxes.

Sore and stiff: Ketannah Hope and Benjamin Keri slept in cardboard boxes on black plastic film behind Bethel Hall as part of Youth Homelessness Matters Day. Credit: Karli Borresen.

Ketannah Hope, president of student mission club COSMOS, and Benjamin Keri, a Bachelor of Arts student, slept in their boxes on a piece of black plastic film under the gum trees behind Bethel Hall, April 6, the date of Youth Homelessness Matters Day.

Ketannah woke with a chill and felt sore and stiff. “I began to understand why when people who are homeless walk, it looks like each step hurts.” Ben missed his morning shower. “I looked scruffy, I felt scruffy and I began acting scruffy—I lost all etiquette from 21 years of practice in one meal,” he says. “I enjoy a week of camping dirty, but the dirtiness of being homeless is different. Not being able to provide for your physical needs is degrading.”

While they recognise the experience as not accurately portraying homelessness—many people “couch surf”—and describe it as “artificial”—Ketannah accepted an offer of a thin sleeping bag—both students say the loss of not only a sense of belonging but also a sense of dignity and identity has inspired them to find other ways to support people who are homeless.

“Imagine the change if we truly loved our neighbours,” says Ketannah. “It meant so much when someone smiled at me, talked to me, asked questions of me and shared their food with me.”

Youth Homelessness Matters Day is an initiative of Yfoundations and the National Youth Coalition for Housing. The theme of the day this year: the hidden nature of youth homelessness. To learn more about the issue, visit www.youthhomelessnessmatters.net.