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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The JNC acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands on which we work, the Gadigal and Bidjigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that these lands always were and always will be Aboriginal lands. We celebrate First Nations Peoples’ connection to the land and recognise the importance of Indigenous voices and culture. We would like to advise that there may be images or videos on this website of people who have since passed.

50 years of JNC

This year we are excited to be celebrating 50 years of The Junction Neighbourhood Centre, or JNC as we are known. Since 1974, JNC has been creating community connections, supporting community members, and providing a diverse range of community services for people in the Eastern Suburbs and, more recently, Inner Sydney. The presence of the neighbourhood centres, our role in addressing social isolation, the trust that we’ve built over time, as well as our service delivery, have all led to JNC becoming a key component of local social infrastructure.. Today we continue to enhance wellbeing and build resilience in the community through our quality service delivery.

The original founders of C.H.A.R.M in 1974 and again in 2007.

 Short History

Our history lies in a commitment to social justice and to creating local opportunities for people to be involved in their community. Our presence today is thanks to local community members who shared these values and have been committed to community development. In the early 1970s, members of the Randwick Chaplaincy and other local volunteers were concerned about poverty, loneliness and disadvantage and the shortage of welfare services in the area. With a purpose to provide solution-based services, the Community Help Association of Randwick Municipality, or CHARM, was formed in 1974.  In these formative days volunteers were the most important factor in the organisation, doing home visits, driving and shopping for older people, handyman service, and a crisis child care and information service By the end of the first decade, CHARM had developed into a professionally run volunteer organisation, growing from an idea to an organisation.

With this growth, CHARM was renamed the Randwick Information and Community Centre (RICC) to reflect the growing importance of information provision within the local community.  The following years saw growth in services, several moves for RICC between Maroubra Jn and Randwick, with the organisation responding to increasing cultural diversity in the community, working for reconciliation with First Nations People and acting as an advocate for other services,

In 2010 we adopted a new name – The Junction Neighbourhood Centre, adopting the concept of ‘junction’ being a place where people come together 

In the past decade we have had two mergers, firstly with ECHO Neighbourhood Centre and then with Neighbour Connections, resulting in new centres in Bondi Junction and Glebe respectively and expanding our service delivery into the Waverley LGA and the City of Sydney.  For a short while we had a community Hub in Randwick which focussed on community capacity building.  Since we closed that Hub in 2018, we have shifted our focus to not just being a place where people can come together. We have a community van and now take our team and services out into the community to increase accessibility and focus our work within communities, particularly with people who are isolated, vulnerable or disadvantaged.

JNC 1988

1974-1999

In 1999,  to celebrate our 25th Birthday, JNC staff, at the time RICC, put together a collection of the first 25 years of JNC. See what they came up with below! 

A History of Social Justice

Social justice has underpinned the work of JNC since we established in 1974. Since the very beginning our values have been consistent: equality, equity, access, participation and reconciliation. These have driven our commitment to the local community for the 50 years that we’ve been working locally. Social justice principles have driven our service delivery models: our approach is to enable things to happen by working with the individuals, families and the community. We provide spaces to make services accessible in the local area, we work within strengths-based and enabling frameworks and our programs enhance wellness and wellbeing for individuals, as well as community strengthening.

 

While this value has been consistent from ’74 at JNC, another constant that has the limited funding, resources and times of uncertainty in the environment we work in. As a response, JNC brings in the resources of our well-built networks, including volunteers and our partners.  Staying small and local, and driven by our passion for social justice, has enabled us to stay flexible and innovative in our approaches and responses to these challenges for half a century.  

A History of Working Locally

What is a Neighbourhood Centre?

Faye Williams, the previous chair of JNC’s Board, defines a neighbourhood centre as exactly that, “a centre in a neighbourhood”. The local physical presence of our Neighbourhood Centres in Maroubra and Bondi Junction, the trust that we’ve built with the community and the services that we have provided have all led to JNC playing a key role in local social infrastructure. Our local presence means we are accessible and provide a welcoming and safe space for everyone in the community.

Local Work

 

When we step back and look at the value of our organisation and the over 1000 other Neighbourhood Centres and Houses in Australia, it is clear that these spaces are more than great services – they are an important asset in their local communities. Working locally has been the core of JNC’s work since our establishment in 1974. While our work  has grown and extended since the early days, expanding across a wider area and becoming mobile with the use of JNC’s community van, the focus of all our work is local, creating local community connections to address social isolation. These centres, both solid and mobile, thrive due to the collaborative local partnerships with other agencies to maximise the value of community work.  Our work stays relevant because we listen to the local communities and work with them to create local solutions, just as happened in the early days of JNC.

45 Years & 45 Stories

2019 marked the 45th anniversary of the JNC and the team worked creatively to celebrate in a unique way that shared the meaning of what we are as an organisation. Over the past four and a half decades the JNC has had a strong connection to the local community. In 2019, we asked ourselves ‘what difference have we made?’.
To answer that question, we turned to our passionate staff, volunteers, and clients.

Check out JNCs 45 years, 45 stories and learn about the journey that we’ve been on.