The Amazing and Inspirational Tara Winkler

So I have decided it is about time I wrote something positive. I mean, not all youth bug me. Some, but not all. I would like to share with you a wonderful story about an inspirational young girl.
Tara Winkler discovered, on a trip to Cambodia, that the children in the local Battambang orphanage were being subjected to appalling abuse and neglect at the hands of the corrupt orphanage director. At just 21 years of age she left her home in Vaucluse and her bright future in the film industry to open the Cambodian Children’s Trust, or CCT, and immediately became responsible for the lives of 14 children. The children, together with many other children and families in Battambang now live under the protection of the CCT at the special complex Tara began. The children all attend good schools and are learning to break the cycle of abuse and poverty- some of the children are even studying to become lawyers and doctors.

Tara plans to spend five years and $2 Million developing the new orphanage into a self-sustaining eco-village. She has learned to speak the local language fluently, and is developing key relationships with Cambodian authorities with a mind to improving the situation in her new home town.
Tara is one of the 2010 NSW Young Australians of the year, and is in the running for Young Australian of the year- the winner of which will be announced on Australia Day 2011.
For more information about Tara and her cause visit the CCT website.

Related Articles
Children of a Lesser God - a must watch!
Australian of the Year Awards 2011

Here are some RSS feeds that I am following, a few of which have featured Tara.
Perth Now.
Prospero World
Swan Libraries 2.0 Blogspot
Libaries Interact
Powerhouse Museum
Australian Genealogy Journeys

R.I.P. Delicious: You Were So Beautiful to Me

R.I.P. Delicious: You Were So Beautiful to Me

The terrifying adventures of a bolt of cotton.

At the risk of sounding like a narrow minded old bat, WHAT is with teenage fashion nowadays? I will agree that involving oneself in a subculture is a part of adolescence, development and learning who you are, but where is the line? Particular subcultures wear attire that is strange, inappropriate, scruffy, immodest or downright offensive.

My son recently acquired a pair of what I am told are called “Phat pants”. These “pants” would resemble wide flares, if it weren’t for the multi-coloured neon ‘safety tape’ all over them. I am told they are for raves, that the disco lights pick up the tape and make the pants glow. That’s right folks.  He wears these in PUBLIC. Worst of all though, is that he insists on wearing them not on his waist, nor on his hips, nor even slung around his pelvis. He wears them BELOW his backside, boxers free for all to see. A little like this young gentleman.

My daughter has a strange fascination with vintage clothing. Well, vintage is being polite. These do not in any way resemble the clothing of my era, or even my mother’s. These are more like antiques. One of her favourite dresses features a lace collar so wide it could either have belonged to a nun or a school girl. In the mid-19^th Century.  Now don’t get me wrong, some of the skirts and dresses are lovely. I am quite a big fan of this season’s “maxi dress”. It’s about time that young ladies went back to (at least) legal length skirts. But my daughter’s favourite pieces do not stop at the knees or calves. If she could buy the wardrobe of anyone in the world, I’m sure it would belong to “Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman”

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I often wonder if my children are employable or respectable, but I guess they are quite tame compared to some of the possible subcultures they could belong to. Some of the more extreme options include Cybergoth and Lolita, or Gothic, as shown.  I think I will stop complaining, and consider myself lucky.