Melbourne the most liveable city?

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For 3 years in a row Melbourne has been voted the most liveable city.  Out of 140 cities, Melbourne  was given perfect scores for health care, education and infrastructure.

For Victoria’s 23,299 homeless I’m not sure if this would be true for them.  One in three of those are children under the age of 12.  And almost half were under the age of 25.  (2006 census)

For more info see : It takes a home

Blue laneway

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Just the other week an artist  – Adrain Doyle – transformed this iconic Melbourne graffiti laneway by spray painting it ’empty-nursey blue’.  A colour he says sums up his feelings about his childhood.

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It wasn’t long before the taggers, graffers, and street artists were were back, painting over the ’empty-nursey blue’.

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I went to see the laneway 3 days after it had been sprayed blue, to see it quickly returning back to its bright past.  When I arrived there was school students, tourists, grafters alike all there to see the laneway with a camera/phone in hand.

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One of my favourite things about street art is its ability to transform a space and bring people together.  Here we all were different people, but at that moment all there to wonder and marvel over the ’empty-nursey blue’ laneway.

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Guilt Free Shopping…?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jb9naGAiu3k
Ever spent a day shopping, spent lots of money and then walked past a homeless person and felt guilty?

If you shop online for music, electronics etc at Homepage for the Homeless you can donate up 15% from your purchase to youth homelessness via Ladder – a charity run by AFL players.

Step 1: Set ‘Homepage for the Homeless’ as your homepage.
Step 2: Click through a ‘keyhole’ before you shop online.
Step 3: Shop away, and up to 15% of your spend will be donated by the store to help Australia’s homeless – with no extra cost to you.

Think About it…

http://vimeo.com/lizarcus/juliathinkaboutitproject
A bunch of young people share their stories. The eight attitudes associated with the Riddle scale of homophobia are drawn upon as the young people’s voices ‘emerge’, sharing their real life experiences in the hope that the broader community will experience these short films, and then ‘think about it’.

Ever been conned by a beggar?

Yesterday I bought some pizza slices on my way home from work. I had 3, for $5. Just enough to fill the hole before I get home. As I was just about to attack slice 3, a beggar came up to me in the street, and asked for money. I awkwardly hid my body language of a person about to take a bite of dinner, and smoothly transitioned it into an offer, of my last piece of pizza. Immediately the small silver stubbled man spoke from under his cap that he needed money for a place to stay tonight. Not pizza. Now I didn’t want to give money today. My daily account was a bit short, with only $20 left. Payday was 2 days away. I said no. He replied in disgust “I don’t know how you people can sleep at night… you can give money. you know you can. But you won’t. You just don’t give a shit”. I held back the temptation to inform the man i worked for an org that supported homeless people and instead awkwardly removed my self from the conversation, and continued home munching my pizza. it had gotten cold.

Today, after getting off the tram on my way to work, 15 minutes early, I stopped by the ATM to pull out my $20. Payday was tomorrow, and I was looking forward to my first coffee of the day. On the walk to the cafe, a new beggar, exclaimed a huge hello from half way down the street. He came happily over to me, and in an extremely needy tone, asked for some loose change. I replied that I could give him the coins I would get once I broke my note when I bought my coffee. He said great! and we proceeded to the cafe. A moment later he asked me, could he have $5 seeing as I was breaking a $20? I was caught off guard, and ummed and arred, he pounced on my hesitancy and the next thing I knew I had agreed.
I bought my coffee, recieved $16.50 back, and handed him the $5. He whipped out another $5, all crumpled and dirty. He said, can i give you back these two $5’s and get your $10? This $5 looks so dirty and It makes me look bad.
confused by the pace of his comments, and seeing the way he might be looked down upon with that $5, I passed him the $10 as he reached out to give me his two $5’s. But my hand returned with only one $5 in it… the dirty one. I looked up and he was out the door, with a cheeky grin of success on his face. I exclaimed after him, but there was no catching him… my last words were… “You’re good mate…” he actually thanked me, aware, that he was in fact, quite good.
And I was left standing there. In front of my regular barista, not just $10 poorer, but poorer in my sense of control. He had outwitted me. My pride a bit beat, I proceeded on my day with my last $6.50, off to my free lunch at Credo, most likely followed by another coffee or two, and a pay check at midnight. The thing is I can afford to get ripped off.
Why are we so afraid to be ripped off?
Is it really just our pride?

Meet The Team

 Name: Evan Morgan

What do you do at Urban Seed?
Run sessions, hang out with kids hang out with our regulars.

What kind of music are you into?
Doof doof. But all genres can be good.

What’s your stereotype?
Hippy probably? I’m really a Brunswick guy. I have dreads, I’m arty, drink a lot of coffee and vote Greens. 

Favourite food?
Like music, all kinds of food can be done well.

If you could sit down for a coffee with the PM what would you talk about?
The intervention into Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. It was something the Howard government started and while Kevin Rudd apologized for the stolen generation he hasn’t stopped the intervention. An indigenous friend of mine recently implied that more children have been removed from communities through the intervention than were taken during the stolen generation. I haven’t seen the facts on that, but the sentiment is strong. Also, why has Australia never had an indigenous person in the position of Minister for Indigenous Affairs?

Do you have any mad skills?
Mixing bangers. But seriously, I can hum and whistle at the same time and harmonise them. I am also a gun at strategy board games and can blow smoke rings.

If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
John Howard. Because I disagree with so many of his policies but I think it’s good to understand others perspectives and have my beliefs challenged from the source.

What does Urban Seed mean to you?
Relationships and the way it values those simple connections. The way it changes society through often undervalued social events.

Meet The Team

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Name: Chris Durie

What do you do at Urban Seed?:
I’m part of the Youth and Schools team. We chat with Youth and Schools bout stuff n’ whatever…

What kind of music are you into?:
Pretty mixed. I’m really into 70s funk but I also like a bit of punk, emo, rock, pop, indie etc and some video game soundtracks are mind blowing.

What’s your stereotype?:
The Christian. I go to church A LOT, I have loads of Christian friends, I like reading and chatting Theology and my Dad is a priest. At school I got a lot of crap for being a Christian.

Favourite food?:
The one with food in it. I don’t really have a favourite but I recently went to Africa and ate enough cabbage for a life time, so I’m gonna go with “not-cabbage”.

If you could sit down for a coffee with the PM what would you talk about?:
I’d try to find out info about their personal life and psychoanalyze their childhood.

Do you have any mad skillz?:
Nun chuck skills, bow-hunting skills… Nah, I can juggle a bit and I have access to a parallel universe where Chuck Norris was never born.

If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?:
My brothers? I don’t see them enough but when I do it’s always a riot.

What does Urban Seed mean to you?:
It’s a way of living out my beliefs in a practical way. Jesus is really concerned about the marginalised and talked heaps about how we should treat wealth and those without it. I’m trying to live that.