Rebecca and Kylie talk to 3RRR

Posted on February 23, 2011 by admin
Rebecca and Kylie talk to 3RRR about Home STREAT Home (10 minute – 22M file)

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Interview Transcript

Kulja Coulston

We’re joined by two guests now from an organization called STREAT. Rebecca Scott & alsoKylie Gordon. Thank you both for coming in to RRR and having a chat with us.

Rebecca Scott 

Thank you

Kulja Coulston

You’re both part of STREAT but STREAT is also part of the State of Design Festival and it would be really interesting to hear how your organisation fits in to the concept of State of Design this year, but first let’s start with your organisation, what it does. You’ve actually been guests on this program before and we sort of heard how it started up but maybe remind us of what you actually do.

Rebecca Scott

Sure, I’m hoping for those of you who have been to Melbourne Central recently or maybeMelbourne Uni, you’ll have seen us. We provide homeless young people between the age of 16 and 25 with jobs and training in hospitality. But we run food and coffee carts where they get their training and employment opportunities. So it’s a combination of theoretical skills but a whole bunch of then on the job training as well for the seven months that they’re with us.

So we’ve been going for just over a year, or probably closer to a year and a half now and we’re up to serving 50,000 customers. So we served our 50,000th customer was it maybe two weeks ago now Kylie?

Kylie Gordon

Ah yeah a couple of weeks ago.

Donna Morabito

Did they get a prize?

Kylie Gordon

They did, they got a signed STOP sign, a free t-shirt and a loyalty card. Also kudos as well for being our 50,000th customer!

Rebecca Scott

So you know we’ve been busy in that last time since we spoke to you. Yeah there’s a lot happening. Apart from the 50,000th customers we’re also up to our 40th young person now and we’ve got a whole bunch of graduates and you know there’s a lot of great stuff that’s been happening.

Kulja Coulston

And you access the trainees or they come to you via employment agencies and the like, so is the word getting out? I remember the trainee that came in with you last time thought it was a pretty fantastic opportunity for her in particular. Is the word getting out that you know this is going to take people places?

Rebecca Scott

It is actually, and it’s really good coz this is our new class that’s started back at STREATjust about a week and a half ago, there’s 13 of them and that our biggest class. So we’re getting more people that are hearing about us but it’s also easier too as you’ve got more and more young people who have finished the program and going on to do great stuff, and people in their networks as well will hear about it, so I think it just takes a bit of time word of mouth before lots of people have heard of you, and also too our young people are referred through different agencies.

So you know there’s a heck of a lot of agencies out there dealing with young people who have got a whole bunch of issues but training and employment, or you know lack of training and employment being one of those as well. So those agencies now certainly know about us, and yeah I think it’s really lovely to see kind of a year on what’s possible and go hey this can work. You know we’ve got a whole bunch of young people who have in occasions sleeping rough through seven months later now working in fine dining and working on apprenticeships.

Kulja Coulston

And is that some of the examples of what’s happened, people have gone on to get employment with skills that they didn’t have before?

Rebecca Scott

Absolutely, look we’ve got a bunch of our young people who have gone onto Charcoal Lane, I don’t know if you know Charcoal Lane the restaurant run by Mission Australia on Gertrude St in the city. And that’s a really good example of providing a whole bunch of pathway options for young people but in partnership. So five of our young people who have finished with us have finished their certificate II in hospitality but then gone on to do a full apprenticeship at Charcoal Lane either in front of house or Kitchen. So our first fully qualified Chef’s coming out the other end and our very first two young people have now graduated from there and are going into the workplace, so one of those young people has now gone into the catering arm of Clayton Utz the law firm.

So we’re just starting to see that first you know kind of full cycle. Our first young people moving into private rental now that they’ve got steady jobs. Those sorts of stories and they’re the sorts of things that you just wish that everyone could see the before and after. When you saw a young person, you know one of our young men Andrew, on the very first day at STREAT when we were getting him ready on the front steps, putting his chef’s whites on at William Angliss, and him pointing across the road and saying that’s where I used to sleep in flagstaff gardens, and you know he’s a young person who’s held down a job now for, pretty much since leaving STREAT. He’s been taken over seas with his work in sales.

And you just think that’s an extraordinary kind of transformation and I think often that you know STREAT’s like a bridge. A young person in our program wouldn’t be in a position to walk in off the road, off the street and be able to get training at William Angliss or go and get a job, but they need just a bit of a bridge, and that bridge for them is seven months long, and then if you’ve got other partner organisations like Charcoal Lane, well that bridge maybe can be even a little bit longer.

Donna Morabito

So how does this fit in with the State of Design Festival then? I know there’s a bit of a focus on food and that kind of eating experience in State of Design, but how does STREAT fit into it?

Rebecca Scott

The festival theme this year is about moving, it’s about mobility and STREAT whilst our carts don’t move all around the place. We are really interested in design that moves and fairly portable micro structures. So we did this really interesting collaboration with RMIT Design students, final year design students, where they went out onto the streets and looked at what existing infrastructure was out there, but they also started to think about what do we actually want to see out on the streets?

The rest of the planet has this really, really vibrant street food culture. Everyone else seems to eat on the streets, and know that it’s a great location to eat, and we’ve got all of these people that have come from all over the planet to Melbourne, from cultures that have very rich street food cultures, but we don’t have it here. So it’s kind of our frustration, you know STREAT came about really because of that street food cultureoverseas.

Kulja Coulston

You don’t really get it here, you get it at festivals I suppose, there are those kitchens that do set up if there’s a market stall happening or whatever but not day in day out on the street regularly where you know you can go to whatever street in Melbourne and there’s the stalls randomly.

Rebecca Scott

Absolutely, and look part of that I because of the regulation. I mean the food cart, a small food cart has the same regulations as a full café.  So you’ve got three sinks, hot and cold running water, a whole bunch of things that if you look around the planet at what people are doing, and you say could you do that in Australia?

Kulja Coulston

Absolutely not!

Rebecca Scott

So 99% of the time you’d go, no way could you do it! So STREAT’s gotta have like the Rolls Royce of push carts, where you’ve got this huge amount of compliance, but within those regulations, you’ve still got some latitude, and we’re really, really interested from a design perspective how do you start to push those boundaries a little bit? What is possible within our regulations?

And one of the things we’re really aware of I guess, you know operating on the streets in some cases. We had a Federation Square site which was straight on the street. But you start to see some of the other infrastructure that’s out there, so you see the council infrastructure like the fruit kiosks, and convenience kiosks and you know infrastructure that’s there and has a huge amount of investment in it, but often not fully utilized.

So the project with the RMIT students, really started to think about what would we like to do? What kind of food experiences would we like to have on the streets of Melbourne? But how could you start to put some of those there, potentially using some of that existing infrastructure. So real creativity.

Donna Morabito

What ideas came up then, maybe Kylie would you like to?

Kylie Gordon

Yeah well the students actually really blew us away with what they came up with, they had everything from a high tea experience all the way through to a 1,2,3 minute meal, which used an existing fruit kiosk and also utilized tram stop technology. So essentially people waiting at a tram stop could order a meal depending on how long they had to wait for their tram, and that meal would then be shuttled down to them. So really, really inventive stuff and really did push that boundary of what the future of food experience on the streets of Melbourne could actually look like.

Kulja Coulston

And as part of State of Design, there is an event that people can get along to its happening Thursday the 28th July from six o’clock, and you’re going to take people on a guided tour. Maybe quickly let us know what people are in for if they get involved with that. It sounds like it’s a free event by donation?

Kylie Gordon

Yep, yep it’s a free event; it starts at 6pm and will run until 9pm. It starts at STREAT, and we’re actually working with the Projector Bike crew as well so we’re gonna kick off the night with some really huge projections that are actually the work of one of our STREAT Graduates. And then we’ll do a little bit of a tour around the Melbourne CBD taking in some posters and paste ups that explore the students work that they created, there’ll be some images overlaid over that to really bring them to life as well. Also as well as getting some really great design, people will also get the opportunity to taste some of our food. So it’s going to be a really great night, and yeah if people want to come along, do head to theState of Design website and check it out.

Kulja Coulston

And yeah you can do that and we’ll put a link up on our website, and if you want to find out more about STREAT in particular its www.streat.com.au. And STREAT has like E-A-T not double ET! And thanks so much to Rebecca Scott & Kylie Gordon for coming in today, it’s really great to see you again and all the best and of course if you want to go and support their businesses there’s one at Melbourne Uni and one at Melbourne Central.

Kylie Gordon

Thank you!

Rebecca Scott

Thanks, see ya guys.