00:00We're at a bit of an unusual event here in Darwin today, we're about to see lots of colourful
00:07couches being raced down a path to highlight homelessness, youth homelessness in particular
00:14in the Northern Territory, which is a massive issue up here.
00:17But I'm with Gem Wood from Anglicare NT who can tell us all about it.
00:21Gem, how did this event come about?
00:23So since 1990 there's been Youth Homelessness Matters Day that's run nationally and in 2012
00:29Anglicare NT decided to get on board and race couches because we're seeing a lot of
00:35young people that were presenting homeless that was couch surfing across different places
00:40throughout the NT.
00:42And this is obviously a really big issue in the Northern Territory, we have one of the
00:45highest rates of youth homelessness.
00:47What does an event like this do to highlight the issue?
00:50Look, a community event raises awareness, we're all about raising awareness for over
00:553,000 young people that are homeless on any given night in the NT, with young people,
01:00community organisations and the community coming together to acknowledge that we've
01:04got an issue and it's an issue that's serious and needs to be addressed.
01:08And if there was one big solution that we really needed to look at what would that be?
01:13Look, we are calling for the Australian Government to have a stand-alone Child and Youth National
01:19Plan to address youth homelessness, child and youth homelessness, and advocating for
01:25additional funding to fund what young people and children need to be able to be safe and
01:32call somewhere home.
01:33Thanks so much.
01:35We are about to see lots of couches running down this path here, they're colourful, they're
01:40bright, there's lots of young people as well who are feeling a little bit nervous about
01:44how they're going to go in the race, but it's definitely a fun day to highlight a really
01:48prevalent issue here in the Northern Territory.
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