Exploring social disparity in our city

The Wayside Chapel’s motto ‘love over hate’ was explained to us by Rob Holt who uncovered that through love, he was healed from a life of racism, abuse and substance misuse into a future of becoming a key part of the Wayside Chapel’s team. Not only were we spoken to, but we were given a tour of Kings Cross to showcase the distinct divide between its wealthy and developed areas as well as the lower socio-economic areas that are strongly associated with prostitution and substance abuse.

This section of the walk was very confronting, as the sheer disparity between two areas situated so close together was shocking. We were shown areas that are common for drug paraphernalia to be hidden and places where drug overdoses have occurred in concealed areas that we walked past. For my class, this really contextualised and brought to light the human wellbeing issues within Sydney and the imperative need for services such as the Wayside Chapel. Being given the opportunity to experience this was all due to our teacher, Ms Lockton, who always strives to give us a deeper understanding of the curriculum that a textbook cannot offer.