The great cry of many people in regional Australia is for help and extra resources to help battlers through the tough times. And while we need to applaud those who work hard to provide community services, helping families and funding events, we also need to make sure we don’t take them for granted.
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For years, St Vincent de Paul has been doing great work in Ashmont, assisted by kind donations from the community. But when we heard that the shopfront was being closed up because of the crime in the area, it made our blood boil.
There’s a shocking mentality among some people in lower socio-economic areas that if they can’t have something nice, then neither should anybody else. This is jealousy driven to destruction and we see acts of vandalism, theft and violence spring up in the very places where any belongings are precious resources.
Now, because of the acts of a nasty minority, the entire community has to go without.
You see, the people of Ashmont aren’t all criminals or hoodlums or vandals. Yes, some of them are, but those people live in every suburb, every postcode, across Australia. The majority of people living in Ashmont are honest, hard-working folk who want the same things are everyone else: To share a meal with their friends and family, to have a laugh and to provide a future for their children.
But because of the actions of a few ratbags, the entire suburb, the entire community, has to live with the consequences. This goes beyond the closure of Vinnies, what happens if the IGA or the newsagency decides to follow suit and shut up shop? People who need a little help will have to travel a lot further just for the essentials.
They say it takes a village to raise a child and in the case of some of these young ratbags, the entire Ashmont community needs to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough. No child is born to be antisocial or a criminal, it’s the environment they grow up in that does that to them.
So it’s up to everyone to call out bad behaviour when they see it, from the youngest of children right up to adults. Let them know that everyone’s watching, that what they’re doing is unacceptable. If you know the parents of these young thieves and vandals, go speak to them and if they need help, offer it.
If we all retreat behind our doors then our communities wither and die and that’s when the criminal element will really thrive.