The Swan Friendship Café has been a landmark in providing homemade food for its loyal patrons over the past ten (10) years. Operated by Ms. Maria Sorgiovanni and the Board of the Swan Friendship Club of WA Inc., the café has provided employment and training to young adults with disabilities. The Swan Friendship Café is situated in Centrepoint Shopping Centre, Midland, Western Australia. The Cafe is on Facebook.
My son, Alex Hawes, has been one of the young adults benefitting from meaningful and paid employment at the Café. Alex was born with Tricuspid Atresia (a congenital heart defect) and developed Autism, Asthma, Intellectual Disability and Low Muscle Tone. As a chronically unemployed young man since he left school in 2009, the Café has provided Alex with a niche where he feels proud, useful and valued. In short, he loves his job at the Swan Friendship Café.
Unbelievably, the Café has never received any funding from government. Politicians have visited the Café, offered empty promises and scuttled away. The Swan Friendship Café will close as of Friday 20 May 2016 unless significant and recurrent funding of $100,000 per annum is secured by this date.
Please sign this petition (through Change.org) to save the jobs of my son and the other young people employed by the Swan Friendship Café. I have addressed the petition to Mr. Christian Porter, Federal Minister for Social Services as I have no faith in the current state government here in Western Australia.
I would plead with Mr. Porter to make an urgent visit to the Café, which falls in his electorate. These young people are not a burden; they just want to keep working at the Swan Friendship Café. Mr. Porter, please make this happen.
Our autistic superstar relaxing in Heavenly Beverley..
Man about town at the BeFriend Ball...
With good friend Adrienne at the BeFriend Ball...
and with best mate from primary school, Chris at the BeFriend Ball.
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