 Mandy
Miles
Founder of Make a Difference
I was born in Sydney, Australia,
in 1958. I completed a Degree in Social Work at
the University of NSW in 1980, then went on to
take up a live-in position at a youth refuge
looking after up to ten troubled teenagers.
After eighteen months I left and
travelled overseas on my own, visiting 21
different countries and staying at youth
hostels. After a year, a friend from Sydney
joined me in London and we returned home -
mostly by land - in five weeks, including taking
the Trans Siberian railway from Moscow to
Beijing. Few westerners travelled to the
communist countries in those days, which made
for many interesting experiences!
While in England I worked as a
scullery maid in a traditional English
household, looking after a 98 year old lady and
her 65 year old daughter, along with their 18
year old epileptic cat who had her own room, and
required as much care as her owners! I was the
last of a long line of servants, maids,
gardeners and chauffeurs and I found it quite
fascinating to experience being a servant in a
household that believed absolutely in the class
structure and treated me accordingly. Although I
was miserable at times as a result, I would not
have missed it for anything.
On my return I worked over the
next seven years as a caseworker with children
in residential care, and as a therapist and
group leader, and later co-ordinator, in a small
non-government counselling agency specialising
in addictions. I also ran 'alcohol and other
drug' Relapse Prevention groups at a men's
prison.
In 1990 I established my first
small business - a home delivery service. I then
established a dog training business, and in 1996
was the successful tenderer for a two-year
government contract to supply and deliver fruit
and vegetables for a government prison, as well
as working part time as a caseworker, then
supervisor, in Foster Care. I mostly established
businesses as an alternative to employment
because I was a carer for some people who were
in difficulty, and employment did not give me
the flexibility I needed to be with them.
In 1991 driving to the shops I
saw smoke coming from a house. I went back and
found the house was on fire and two elderly
people were locked inside. I got into the house
and got the old lady out, then went in and found
the old man alight and put out the fire on him.
Sadly, he died 8 hours later in hospital from
his burns. The old lady is still alive and is
now about to turn 91. For this action I received
a bravery award ('CBC' - Commendation for Brave
Conduct) on Friday 4th May 2001 at Government
House in Sydney, and will appear in the
'Australian Who's Who - National Honours and
Awards' to be published soon.
From 1998 - 2000 I held a full
time position as an Operations Manager with a
major charity, being responsible for 24 services
across Sydney, with one of the functions being
to give assistance to the poor. Large charities
are only able to give very small amounts of
'emergency relief' - the assistance given to
families and individuals in crisis. For a family
it is approximately $25 three times a year. I
had seen however, in my role as Operations
Manager, many families in deep difficulty for
whom such a contribution was virtually
meaningless. I saw a need for families to be
offered substantial financial resourcing and
mentoring to enable them to achieve an actual
change in their circumstances. In 2000 I
established a charity called 'Make a Difference'
to provide this service.
Make a Difference provides
support and assistance to children (and their
families) living in poverty in Sydney. Make a
Difference is a 'charity of last resort', only
becoming involved when all other avenues for
help and support have been exhausted. We then
help in a substantial way with the aim, in most
cases, of partnering with the family until they
have resolved the problem or series of problems
that led to their crisis. This may involve a
long-term commitment to some families. We
provide mentoring to assist with problem-solving
as well as substantial financial resourcing
aimed at achieving change, so that the future
can be different from the past for the child or
family.
The Directors of Make a
Difference administer the charity, as well as
seeing clients. Only Directors may see clients.
There are no employees. In my 22 years
experience I have never encountered a model like
ours. Our main points of difference are that we
provide both financial and mentoring support;
that we provide substantial financial backing to
support a change effort; that no-one in the
organisation is paid; and that we provide a
professional level of intervention for clients,
informed by the extensive clinical background of
the Directors.
The benchmark we have set for
working with our clients is $1,000 per family.
Some children or families will receive more
assistance, some less, depending on their
particular needs. There are no limits on when
they can return to us for further assistance.
Our kind of intervention is expensive and
requires a strong source of funding to continue.
Until the present we have been largely
self-funding on the basis of contributions from
the Directors.
Our service is the most
effective method for assisting people to create
a whole new beginning for themselves and an
exciting and hopeful future, of any service I
have ever seen over the last 22 years. It is an
irony that we are not likely to qualify for
funding from many sources.
Government funding for welfare
services has been progressively diminishing in
Australia over the last 15 years, and Make a
Difference does not fit any funding guidelines
that I am aware of. Government has instead been
trying to encourage corporates to take on the
burden of funding welfare, and, again, I doubt
that many corporates would want to provide
$5,000 knowing that it will assist just 5
families. They want a better 'Return On
Investment' than that. Our work is slower, and
deeper and costlier because it is life-changing,
and that does not accord well with the kind of
culture that surrounds welfare funding in this
country.
In order to supply the
significant funds required to maintain our work,
I am currently setting up a chain of wood fired
oven caf‚/restaurants called 'Smileys Oven',
which I hope to develop into a franchise
operation both in Australia and overseas, in
order to have a large financial base from which
to transform some of the poor communities in
which we are working at present. This project is
very substantial and I am currently in need of
financial partners to help me to achieve it. I
would love to hear from anyone interested in
helping, even in a small way. I can be contacted
at mandy@gidday.com.
My 'reason for being' is to love
and serve God. My faith has been central to my
life for the last 28 years, and God is the
mainspring of my strength and inspiration.
Despite this, I have not created my charity to
be specifically Christian. This is partly
because of my experiences in numerous Christian
organisations which didn't always act in loving,
ethical and responsible ways towards people, and
so became a poor witness. I thought it was
better to try to speak with actions rather than
words, and show that we are different and let
people ask why, rather than create an
institution with a Christian label which could
later go on to lose its way and do the same sort
of harm. Nor am I sure that the concept of a
'Christian organization' other than a church,
has a biblical precedent.
As a Christian, I want people to
be able to see Jesus in me. I am aware that we
are His hands and feet on the earth, and we need
to do as He asked and 'feed His lambs'.
There is more information in our
Project Outline at: www.makeadifference.com.au.
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