Western Bulldogs Community Foundation partner, CDC Victoria conducted a workshop for Melton and Inner West Leadership Project participants in July at their Sunshine bus depot.

CDC Victoria have worked alongside the Leadership Project (formerly The Whitten Project) since its inception in 2013.

Each year, students who attend the CDC workshop are instructed to graffiti a bus, prior to working together to remove all their tags.

Leadership Project Manager, Adam Moedt expressed his gratitude to CDC for running the interactive session each year.

“The Anti-Graffiti workshop provided by CDC Victoria is a highlight of the program every year” he said.

“The session educates the future leaders of tomorrow about the cause and effects of graffiti tagging in our community, while providing young people with the skills to be social leaders in their communities on the issue of graffiti and vandalism”

Melton Leadership Project student, Brandon Rogers wrote to westernbulldogs.com.au about his experience at the CDC session.

“On Tuesday, the 18^th of July, students from the Western Bulldogs Leadership Project from the inner west and the Melton council group travelled to the CDC bus depot in Sunshine”.

“We were taken to the maintenance department, this is where buses are repaired and where graffiti is removed from buses, which takes up to half a million dollars of tax payers money every year. However, not all buses that are sent to maintenance are there to be repaired in some way, some buses are covered with more beautiful graffiti and are then sold in auctions. People who purchase these buses usually turn the buses into homes”.

“For our first activity, we put on coveralls and covered a bus in as many tags we could with a permanent marker. Once we were finished tagging the bus, we were handed a pair of gloves, protective eyewear and cleaning products to remove every single tag. This showed us what the maintenance workers must do to buses when they get ruined by graffiti tags, and trust me it wasn’t easy, nor fun”.

For more information on Western Bulldogs Community Foundation programs click here.