Father Leo Donnelly: “Centacare grew out of a very obvious need and if you look at the projects Centacare has realised the extent of those needs. They have been an extraordinary force in our Parish here of Port Macquarie and they have been in existence now for 20 years and I would like to congratulate them on the wonderful work they have done during those 20 years.”
Tony Davies: “I suppose the original way of 1995 was the commencement of Centacare. It was a great achievement for us. We were the first Parish model of Centacare in Australia to be recognised and allowed to be a member of the Catholic Social Services Australia. That was a major breakthrough.
The second one was probably the development of our programs for people with disabilities. That was the creation of the group home, I.M.A.G.E group home. And that allowed us to have a base to operate our disability services.
The other one was, in the early days, was the achievement of securing the current funding of the Youth Refuge, up until that stage it was all done on voluntary basis. So they were the three main early ones.
Then we went into the mid 90 type areas or the late 90 areas, and we started to work on the development of community housing and now we have just over 48 properties across the Hastings area supporting people who are socially and financially disadvantaged.
They’re some of the major achievements. Some of the other ones that we worked alongside with was the development of the Peace Community Youth Club, establishing this and we basically went parallel to that for nearly 10 years as an ace achieving PCYC in New South Wales.”
Speaker: “Respecting the dignity of each person.
Validating the culture of others.
Emphasising our commonalities rather than our differences.
Actively identifying our individual strengths.”
this was a great film