Teen Challenge Tasmania’s defence of their funding application to State Government – revealed after nearly a year under wraps – rings hollow.
The irony is that until now, there was at least some grudging respect for the evangelistic organisation because of their claims that they were self-reliant for funding.
That respect has been demolished.
The newly released information shows that in addition to being given a free school worth about $1m, they need another $1m spread over the next three years to secure self-sustainability. That’s a definition of sustainability that is strange to me.
I believe Meander Valley Councillors are also struggling with that same definition.
Teen Challenge Tasmania has a planning application before the Meander Valley Council outlining their proposal to turn the Meander Primary School into a centre to treat women, with their pre-teen children, for addictions.
The program involves intense and prolonged study of the Bible and prayer sessions – for a year or more. They believe no medical treatment is needed: all is achieved strictly with faith alone. The program is outlined in the documentation they provided as part of the planning application. The document is dated May 2016 and entitled the “Home of Hope” submission. It is 83 pages long and contains only a couple of lines of budgetary information. It is available on the Meander Valley Council’s website ( here ), under ‘planning applications’.
There is another May 2016 submission that is also 83 pages long and has the same title, but contains the budget detail lacking in the planning version. This is the newly-revealed information: a submission presented to Government. It also contains letters of support dated from February 2016.
For reasons which elude me, the proponents kept the budget detail hidden from the rest of the community and, it looks like, from the Meander Valley Councillors.
At least now we all know and in a way it is helping focus attention on the closure of rural health services centre in Westbury following Federal funding cuts. That is surely a service which needs to be reinstated with proper funding.
If Teen Challenge Tasmania has to rely on $2m of our taxes to operate the school site, clearly it is an inappropriate site.
They should find somewhere else within their budget’s reach.
*Brian Hillman “brought my well-baked hide over from Western Australia about 3 years ago with the now-evaporated idea of retirement. In WA, I was a full-time agricultural adviser before becoming a full-time father. I do not like being forced into any religious organisation or lied to by them, any Council or political party but I confess to being impressed by Jesus’ example. Unfortunately, most of what I see is Krystyanity – something barely recognisable and of little connection to Christianity.”
• Teen Challenge Tasmania Director Tanya Cavanagh: Teen Challenge reaffirms funding plans
