2021 Winter Appeal | The Smith Family

8-year-old Lucy adores animals and loves caring for her toy rabbit, pretending to give it medicine and putting little bandages on its arms.

Ever since Lucy was very young, she wanted to grow up to be a vet, but at just 8 years old she no longer thinks that’s possible.

This little girl’s dream is slipping away through no fault of her own. She faces overwhelming challenges every day, at home and at school, simply because she is growing up in poverty.

Lucy’s mum has a serious vision impairment and chronic type 1 diabetes and is unable to work. Lucy’s dad is a full-time carer for her mum and two little brothers, who are not yet at school. They are barely making ends meet on a disability pension and carer’s allowance.

With her mum so unwell and her dad busy caring for their family, Lucy has no one at home who can help with her learning.

Lucy’s situation is affecting her learning so much that she’s falling far behind at school, as a result she’s losing her self-esteem and motivation.

Despite the best efforts of her teachers, Lucy is struggling to keep up, especially in reading. While her classmates have the literacy skills they need to progress, Lucy’s reading difficulties are now starting to hold her back in every subject.

Without help, children like Lucy start behind and stay behind.

Children who are living in poverty can be as much as 3 years behind their peers in reading and maths by the age of 15¹. And research shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to complete Year 12², which can limit their options for the rest of their lives³.

With every day that passes, Lucy is falling further behind and losing faith in herself. Her teachers do their best to help her, but she has become very withdrawn in class has given up putting her hand up or trying to participate.

Unless she gets the extra learning support she urgently needs, Lucy may never catch up at school despite everyone’s best efforts.

If that happens, she may disengage completely, be locked into a devastating cycle of disadvantage, and never achieve her goals.

Lucy needs your help now before she gives up on her education and her chance to build a better future.

Poverty is a very real, and very significant issue in Australia. Today in Australia,1 in every 6⁴ children and young people is growing up in disadvantage.

Like Lucy, many of these children face overwhelming challenges at school because of their circumstances at home. Without ongoing, additional out-of-school support for their learning, children like Lucy will not get the most out of their education. This could have an enormous impact on the rest of their lives.

No child should have to give up on their future because they’re living in poverty. But unless they get the urgent help they need, they could face a lifetime trapped in the devastating cycle of poverty.

With a tax deductible gift today you can provide life-changing learning support to help children like Lucy catch up and keep up at every stage of their learning.

Your donation can help a child catch up with their reading skills through our peer-to-peer reading program student2student.

97% of children we’ve worked with in this way have found their reading has improved, so this would be a wonderful starting point for Lucy.