Chappell brothers start foundation for homeless Australians

Apart from the Chappell brothers, Dennis Lillee, Alyssa Healy and tennis star Patrick Rafter too are a part of the foundation.

Former Australia cricketers and brothers Ian, Trevor and Greg Chappell have taken an inspiring step of starting a foundation dedicated to the homeless people of the country. Australia is going through the problem with the increasing number of homeless people and now the cricketers along with some other prominent faces of the country, have come forward to form ‘The Chappell Foundation’, which is dedicated towards providing shelter and food for the deprived youths. Apart from the Chappell brothers, Dennis Lillee, Alyssa Healy and tennis star Patrick Rafter too are a part of the foundation. John Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia has also been included among the honorary patrons. READ: Ian Chappell, Greg Chappell urge Adani to abandon coal mine project in Queensland

Talking about the foundation, Greg Chappell told cricket.com.au, “I’ve always had in the back of my mind that there’s a lot to be done here. While it’s great to support charities overseas … there’s a lot of good causes here in Australia. What really brought (the issue of homelessness) home to me was when I was living in Melbourne. Living in East Melbourne, just over the road from where we lived was Fitzroy Gardens, I used to go over into the Gardens at 6.30 every morning and do some exercise. I was staggered at the number of people who slept in there.

“There’s a couple of electricity booster stations in the Gardens and they would sleep around them because there was a bit of warmth coming off those buildings.That got me thinking about homeless people, particularly young people. When I looked at the research, it was something like of the 100,000 people who sleep rough every night, 40 per cent of them are under 25.”

“I thought, in a country like ours, that’s unacceptable. And there’s a whole raft of stuff that emanates from that. A lot of the people who are in this situation, they’re on various spectrums and they’re quite intelligent people, and if somehow we could help point one, two, a dozen or a hundred of them in the right direction, that would be worthwhile,” he added.

As a matter of fact, there are many organisations who are working on the issue in small scale but are scattered.

“Those groups at the coalface are already doing good work in the area. They just need more support,” Chappell concluded.