“ As a young fella my dad was a Miner so we spent a lot of time in Kalgoorlie in WA and moved to Brisbane when I was about 12. My Dad got into religion but he took it a bit too far. I got taken away from my parents by family services when I was 12. Dad was bit violent and kept booting me out. From there I went to Inala which is one of the biggest ghettos in Brisbane and was placed in about 10 foster homes in 9 months. There was 8 or 9 kids in each home and some carers were only doing it for the money. They didn’t really care about the kids and even back then I couldn’t believe this was our system.
Eventually I ran away and spent most of my teenage years on the streets in Brisbane. Again it was a failed system. You would go into a youth shelter and get kicked out for smoking a joint or doing something minor. You can imagine most street kids that go in there have a whole lot of issues that come with them from being on the streets. Just trying to survive and mask the pain of what’s happening in their life. You have to leave everybody on the streets to go to a youth shelter to be kicked back out again and you then feel isolated. I was very blessed that I was sent to corrections when I was 17. I got to do Year 11 and 12 on a court order instead of going to jail. You get picked on a lot when you’re a street kid by the cops. I had stealing charges, drug charges. It’s just what happens when you are living on the streets. Statistically 70% of kids on the streets will do time in jail the way the system is geared. I was lucky to be put in a place of good, strong mentorship.
I ended up going to University and became a high school English teacher. I only work with disengaged youth who have travelled the same path as me. My mentor used to pick me up, take me to play basketball, check up on me and helped get me through those years. He put me down for University in Armidale. I called him up and said Nick, where the hell is Armidale? He said Mark if you don’t leave Brisbane you are not going to survive. I took his advice and went to Armidale where I made some friends who were pretty solid. Very early my uni teacher saw that I had a creative mind for writing. I was also an MC producing Hip Hop. It was sort of weird going from a life on the streets to an English teacher.
By 20 I was mentoring kids. Kids coming out of jail..I’d help them connect to themselves and to go through the journey of forgiveness which I had to do to move forward. I started working with Indigenous communities doing the One Voice project where we saw 2 communities come together in reconciliation. The kids made a film about how much they wanted peace between Boggabilla and Toomelah. That was it for me. It was amazing. Hip Hop culture bringing in the modalities of working with kids who are at risk. Bringing in film, music, passion, forgiveness, circle work. I ended up travelling the world. I’ve worked in so many countries now and travelled alone to get to know myself.
I came back to Australia and One Vision kept going. It grew and became well known around the country. Now we have quite a lot of artists working for us. We have about 20 people who are in the music or film industry, people mentoring and helping our youth. A lot of people we take on have had similar experiences to the kids so they know what they’re talking about. They didn’t just learn it in a book. Experience really helps in relating to each other. Everything that’s happened to me has been empowering.
I now speak to my parents quite regularly because I’ve been through this massive path of forgiveness. Mum was in a woman’s shelter for 4 years when I was younger as well. She wasn’t able to look after me and Dad had it hard when he was young so he didn’t know how to break that chain. I now welcome them in my life and look forward to our relationship growing. I had to forgive my parents and myself so I could heal the trauma.
I was an alcoholic, I was a drug addict when I was a kid. I like most other street kids was escaping whatever I could to stop it happening. When you’re going through the loneliness and isolation, when you’re a kid and there’s no-one to look to for love, it’s so tough. You do what you can to survive. I was always a missing person. The cops would pick me up, arrest me, off to jail then to a foster home where I’d run away again and so it went.
The kids love what we do with One Vision. It’s given them a platform of their own culture, not just Indigenous. Kids want to be MC’s, DJ’s and Indigenous kids want to learn language, they are hungry for knowledge so it’s good when we bring in elders to teach them this stuff. We just want all kids to reach their full potential. The kids write all the songs themselves. They all have a go and get the chance to get up and do their thing. I took 10 Indigenous kids through a course at SAE. Jannali Doncaster from Indigenoise did the workshop when he was 14 and now he’s travelling the world doing music. It’s great to see these boys grow and work in their passion and create futures. They are amazing kids. I really want see on the North Coast of Australia more of an opportunity for street kids to have housing, education, mentorship and pathways to success. That’s been my goal for a while now.
We don’t really have a place for homeless kids on the North Coast that I’m aware of. I’ve been dropping kids under bridges for years . We really need housing in this area. We need community, culture and connection for our young people. How do we create this connected base framework to work with the youth? I just want to work with anybody who cares about our youth. I’m glad I’ve lived this life because it’s made me who I am. I feel very blessed living a good life.”
( I found it so hard to choose one of the videos to share. I have shared some on HOL before but I hadn’t seen this one from Kingscliff High. Enjoy! Denise.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNMCIzzxIgI