Australian cricketer Brett Lee has helped motivate a group of at-risk young adults thanks to the support of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).
Australian cricketer Brett Lee has helped motivate a group of at-risk young adults thanks to the support of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).
On July 28, Lee visited the Gippsland, Victoria-based youth center called Delhuntie Park, which is operated by Seventh-day Adventists Elwyn and Helen Scale, to speak to the group.
“You can have all these people try to knock you down, but if you focus on the finish line then all the people start to move away and you can start to reach that finish line,” Lee said. “You can do whatever you want.”
Included in the group were eight young adults from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales who had just completed a wilderness adventure program thanks to the support of ADRA and the Muswellbrook Rugby Union Club.
The club approached ADRA after one of its former members committed suicide. “We donated a bat Brett and his brother used on the home improvement television program, ‘Changing Rooms,’ for the club to sell at an auction,” says Gary Christian, the national program manager for ADRA Australia. “The club raised almost $6000 for us, so I promised to do something for at-risk youth in the Hunter.”
The young adults spent their 10 days at Delhuntie hiking, caving, camping in an igloo, abseiling (or rapelling) and four-wheel driving. “The young adults who visit Delhuntie are usually over-entertained and under-challenged, so we stretch them physically and emotionally,” says Scale. “They often say they don’t want to go further but don’t realize they’ve come so far. They end up proving to themselves just how strong they are and just how much strength they can attain with the support of others.”
One of the young adults, Ben Campbell from Newcastle, says Lee’s visit impressed him. “He talked to us like we didn’t have problems. He never looked down on us. It made me feel about 200 feet tall!”
Lee and his brother, Shane, have supported ADRA since launching the organization’s New Day Foundation Program in June 2000. They decided to support the program after one of their friends from high school committed suicide. “We’re not experts in dealing with at-risk youth, but we do have something to say about believing in yourself,” says Brett Lee. “Our message is that nothing is worth taking your life. It’s a selfish thing to do.”
The New Day Foundation Program targets three groups of at-risk young adults: those in crisis, those who have attempted or contemplated suicide and those with a drug addiction. It uses adventure therapy to challenge the negative perceptions these young adults have about themselves. ADRA sponsors at-risk young adults to attend programs at Delhuntie as part of the program.
Christian supports Delhuntie because he says it is “never too early to begin modifying the behavior of at-risk young adults. You keep them off drugs, which keeps them out of hospital, which keeps them in a job, which keeps them out of poverty.”
Australia has some of the world’s highest rates of at-risk youth behavior—the United Nations says illicit drug use is more prevalent than in any other developed country, while the World Health Organization says youth suicide is more prevalent than in two-thirds of other developed countries.