Aurukun Guests Stay at YAL Cairns
In Febuary of 2020 YAL Cairns had the opportunity to have some guests stay in our facility, the Aurukun people. YAL Cairns assisted with the emergency evacuation, which began in mid to late January of 2020 after the Aurukun people were displaced due to a violent incident that happened in their community and gave housing to 60 plus recidents from a remote community in far north Queensland.
YAL worked with the assistance of Queensland Department of Housing and public works to house and assist these residents during the crisis and gave them a soft place to fall in place of the devistation. We assisted families and young Australians in getting them to school when the 2020 term 1 began, though this couldn’t have been done without the help of Mission Australia.
Mission Australia provided incredible social support, Heightened Security Services and the Queensland Police provided additional support to these workers and YAL staff and guests, all whilst the Department of housing made arrangements to find long term housing options for the Aurukunians to support themselves.
“YAL Cairns as a whole aims at providing a purpose for Australians and supporting them no matter the circumstances and we couldn’t be more thankful to Mission Australia, the Queensland Department of housing, the Queensland police and Heightened Security Services for supporting us and the Aurukun guests during their time of uncertainty.” YAL’s CEO Tammy-Rae Schaper.
Photo: Robert Walmberg, Dr Chris Sarra, Dorothy Pootchenumka & Bruce Pootchenumka (right to left)
A letter from Kate Conners, the Executive Director, thanking YAL Cairns for using their facility earlier this year.