Last week the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Oasis success story Nathan Murphy.

Estranged from his parents, Nathan had been living on the street before he contacted the Salvation Army, which found a place for him in crisis accommodation at the Surry Hills Oasis  centre.

Nathan shared a business idea with John Harris, the Salvation Army’s youth liaison officer, who set him up in the Oasis centre’s ‘Champions’ program, a partnership  with Virgin which is geared towards providing young homeless people with the opportunities and skills they need to develop professionally – which John describes as a ‘hand up not a hand out’.

Today, Nathan is living in a studio apartment in the city which the Salvation Army helped him find, and has launched his own business – audiohighschool.com.au, which he had built using savings from his Centrelink payments.

Nathan plans for AudioHighSchool.com.au to develop into an online educational resource for high school students to access audio versions of course material which is conventionally presented in written format – making the most of students’ engagement with the internet and digital technologies, as well as the affordability and portability of the MP3 format.

Nathan will shortly be commencing a traineeship with Virgin Money, which will provide mentoring  and support to get his business off the ground.

You can read the whole article online here:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/nathans-journey-from-a-road-to-nowhere-to-the-information-super-highway-20101201-18fzg.html

Volunteers from local businesses have been supporting our Street Media program, simply by hosting a BBQ’s at our Surry Hills HQ.

Most recently, our friends at local advertising agency, Host, provided the BBQ and a few rap songs from their resident rapper Jon D. With the smell of burnt sausages and onion wafting down Crown Street on a cold afternoon plenty of kids rocked up and it was a great afternoon.

Street Media gives the young people of Oasis a creative outlet by providing access to people who can teach them to write songs and produce their own music. They’ve also provided classes in photography, film and other forms of creative expression. There has been a large influx of young people coming to Oasis for assistance over the winter months and we needed some help getting the new kids connected with the program.

If you’re keen to help Oasis, you can start by getting behind our 32,000 To Go campaign. Simply click one of the action buttons to the left to help us raise awareness.

We had a rather important visitor to Oasis a few weeks ago.  British Entrepeneur Sir Richard Branson came to show his support for Oasis and our fight against youth homelessness.   Sir Richard joined us for a BBQ and while he made us breakfast, some of the young people from Oasis shared their moving stories with him. To show our gratitude, we presented him with a special 32,000 To Go Champions T-Shirt.

He took to Twitter to let his half a million followers know a bit more about our cause:

A big thank you to Sir Richard and the Virgin team for their support.  Remember you can help raise awareness of the

Since launching the 32000 To Go campaign we’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people willing to take up the cause by sharing our goal to reduce youth homelessness in Australia. What’s most encouraging, is that support has come in many forms – from individuals, businesses and schools across the community.

With just one click on any of the buttons to the left you can help raise awareness of the number of homeless youths on Australia’s streets.

Since our launch we’ve clocked up some pretty impressive figures:

• Over 3,500 actions have been taken on Facebook. Combined with our 5,000 Facebook fans, that’s quite an army!
• You’ve sent over 2,000 tweets on our behalf
• We’ve had 1200 email actions taken
• You’ve viewed our Youtube video’s nearly 13,000 times!

Whether you’ve tweeted a link to our site, added the email signature to your email, become a facebook fan, or have helped in any of those 25,000 actions we’d like to say thank you for being a voice for those who sometimes don’t have one.

But there’s still more that can be done. Check out the tabs to the left and try one more of the actions.  Change your profile picture on your preferred social network. Send an email to your local paper. Or simply update your facebook status. It all helps!

The 32,000 To Go team.