The
Catholic Weekly
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Sydney
1 February 2004
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Dunbar mystery unraveled
New school bid for ‘male-only’ offers
Twins among high achievers
Parents urged to read new books
Steps to safety
Priests honoured
Doing the Lord’s work
Religious named
Pregnant pause: To do or not to do? Oh, baby!
Insurance board post
Caring for needy
Lay Catholics
Editorial: True blue
Letters: Thanks to institute
Conversation: Mons Paul Ssegemogerere, vicar general of Kampala, Uganda - Helping his country tread the right path
Today – God’s gift to us all
Refugee children say ‘thanks’
Chinese community has much to celebrate
The stained-glass detective
Teacher, priest and puppeteer
Riding a wild horse ...
Up there, Ignatius!
Mates give Bulls’ groom Super send-off
Riding a wild horse ...
Students and brumbies get to know each other in the Youth Off The Streets program
By Damir Govorcin
Fr Chris Riley wanted to combine two of his great passions – horses and his kids – at Youth Off The Streets.
So, in partnership with horse handler Greg Powell, he developed a program where young people could learn values such as patience, tolerance, kindness, integrity, compassion and respect through their interaction with brumbies.
Students from Youth Off The Streets’ Matthew Hogan School, situated at Canyonleigh in the Southern Highlands, now take part in the service learning program with wild horses from the Snowy Mountains that have been saved from the annual cull.
The objective over a period of six months is for them to build a relationship with the horse based on trust and sensitivity – under Greg’s watchful eye. The kids work in groups of six.
Fr Chris says: “When the horse first decides to form a relationship with the boys and moves towards them without force, the power of the meeting is overwhelming.
“Seeing their faces light up with the realisation that it takes work in any relationship is a moment worth waiting for.”
The brumbies project is also used as an effective anger management tool.
Young people learn constructive and non-violent ways to deal with their frustrations when they experience difficulties or when tackling new challenges.
“Each horse in the herd lives by the laws of absolute allegiance,” says Fr Chris. “They care about each other and their loyalty to their ‘family’ is absolute.
“This in itself will prove to be a powerful teaching aid for the boys who are involved in the project. All of them have been discarded by their families.
“They have few attachments to anyone and so this brumbies program will be a life altering experience and perhaps they will find a ‘family’ for the first time in their lives and develop some ‘rules’ about how a family operates so they will be able to develop nurturing and bonding for their own children in the future.
“Perhaps this is the first step of undoing the generational family breakdown they have been entrenched in.”
Each brumby costs about $500. Feeding them costs around $30 each per week.
And employment of a horse trainer costs about $600 a week.
Fr Chris says it’s “a very cheap treatment program”.
“Many of the kids I work with have suffered years of trauma and abuse – many of them don’t even remember what it feels like to have someone relate to them in a caring and positive way,” he says.
“Working with the brumbies helps them to experience first hand that they can achieve great things through generosity and patience and that shouting or abandoning the project reaps no rewards.”
Service learning projects address the long-term recovery of each of the students by equipping them with skills and qualities to help them succeed after they have graduated and either returned to their families or moved on to living and working in the mainstream community.
The work of the brumby program will be shown in a documentary – Wild Kids, Wild Horses – on Channel 9 at 3.30pm on Saturday, February 7.
If you would like to make a donation to help support the Youth Off The Streets projects call toll free 1800 06 22 88.