Hello, I'm Gemma and welcome to another episode of Good Influence. This is the podcast

where each week you and I meet a guest will help us pay attention to something we should

know about as well as answer some of your questions.

This week we're talking about homelessness. Tackling stigma to help get unhoused people

into jobs, the disproportionate effect of the pandemic or those experiencing homelessness

and how we can individually help to support people.

So joining me this week is Alex Stephanie. Alex is the founder of Beam, a social enterprise

which runs the first crowdfunding platform to help unhoused people access training, stable

employment and homes.

The message is you can make a difference and you need to make a difference.

So if I could start by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself and then a bit

about Beam and what is it that you guys do?

Sure, so my name is Alex Stephanie. I'm the founder of Beam.org and Beam is a totally new

and totally different way to help a homeless person for the long time and to really see

the impact you're having on that person's life.

And this is how it works. You go to Beam.org. You can effectively meet on our tech platform

all the different people that we are supporting. These are individuals living in homeless

hostels, living in women's refuges, overcoming all kinds of different challenges.

You can then fund any of the barriers in their life that are standing in their way.

It could be stuff like training or childcare or tools or textbooks or rental deposits.

And we take these funds, we buy the things that we're meant to buy on the campaign pages

and then we support them into stable jobs and stable homes.

...