25/11/11: Newsletter #2 is out! Here it is if you missed it.
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18/11/11: Our first newsletter hit the virtual newstands today! Here it is if you missed out…
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18/11/11: Planet for the Planet
We here at SHH reckon Ross Longmuir’s idea to donate 10% of SHH proceeds to the Surry Hills Asylum Seekers Centre is spot-on. Here, he gives us the why and wherefore…
Think global and act local has always been a rule of thumb at planet. Surry Hills High perfectly fits with this philosophy and we are excited to be participating this first year. Surry Hills, being a large and diverse suburb, is packed with creative businesses and other surprises. In just Commonwealth St alone we have a mosque, bed and breakfasts, smart restaurants such as Long Grain, Bodega, Billy Hyde’s drum shop, Spring Court shoes, Living Edge Furniture, a wholesale importer of rice, as well as Tessuti, Sydney’s best fabric retailer. I’m sure there are quite a few massage parlours and loads of other quirky businesses too.
We love Surry Hills for its history as a diverse place. It was once the worst slum and the centre of the bubonic plague and is now a highly desirable residential address.
It has always been full of pubs and prostitutes and is a recreational buffer zone for workers on the edge of the CBD and is packed full of Sydney’s best public dining rooms and edgy bars. Sydney’s queer population made Surry Hills their own decades ago. We love the warehouse spaces of the rag trade area that were built following slum clearance. We have a big Asian population being so close to Chinatown, there are three Greek Orthodox churches that I know of and Surry Hills has for decades been a location that new arrivals in Sydney have historically resided in, for cheap central accommodation. Surry Hills has a huge population of homeless people and is a zone where charities offer assistance to many troubled members of our society.
Recently I have discovered that we also have New South Wales’s only resource for asylum seekers at 38 Nobbs St. This centre cares for people whom have recently arrived in Sydney, often surviving extremely brutal circumstances. These people are incredibly vulnerable and desperately need assistance in coping with a new life in Australia. The centre operates without state or federal funding.
For Surry Hills High, Planet will be donating 10% of our daily takings towards the Surry Hills Asylum Centre…
What better way to celebrate the history and human diversity of our suburb!
