Southern Cross Youth Initiative

Philosophy of Education

“Our philosophy is that every person has a capacity to learn. This capacity is like a young sapling that must be trained and nurtured until it is able to become deeply rooted and stand alone, self-supported and unshakeable in the conviction that its firm foundation can withstand the test of any ill wind that may attempt to uproot it.

An ill wind has stunted the growth of the students who come to us. However, with each other’s help, we will learn to dig our roots deeper and make our foundations stronger. We will learn to combat and defeat all obstacles that stand between us and our goals of maturity, self-direction, resilience and independence in our learning ability.

Although in the past, we have been defeated by drug use, we strive to rise from our defeat and take our rightful place in education and the wider community. Once we have regained our learning capacity, we will be active students who can rejoin our schools and regain our dignity.”

* Derived from the philosophy of Phoenix Academy, New York