Plight of homelessness hitting home for teenage North Strathfield student Shayini Velauthampillai

DON’T tell Shayini Velauthampillai she can’t make a difference. The high school student plans on eliminating homelessness in Sydney, and she’s on her way to achieving her goal.

Strathfield Girls High School year 12 students Shayini Velauthampillai, Shoumia Nithianan

DON’T tell Shayini Velauthampillai she can’t make a difference. The 17-year-old high school student from North Strathfield plans on eliminating homelessness in Sydney, and she’s on her way to achieving her goal.

“I hate it when people have the attitude that one person can’t make a difference, or worse still, that I can’t make a difference ­because I’m under age,” the Strathfield Girl’s High student said.

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Along with classmates Tuba Muzzafar and Shoumia Nithiananthan, Shayini started up the charity, Give What You’ve Got, to raise money and clothing for people living on the streets.

The group is nominated in the young achiever category of The Telegraph and NewsLocal’s Champions of the West awards, a grants competition for the Fair Go for the West campaign that consists of 13 categories, each ­offering a $10,000 grant.

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Shayini said her eyes were opened to the city’s homeless problem on a trip to the CBD in April last year. Shocked that there were people living and sleeping on the streets in affluent Sydney, she went straight home to pen an email to the government.

Strathfield Girls High School year 12 students Shayini Velauthampillai, Shoumia Nithiananthan and Tuba Muzzafar started up a charity called 'Give What You've Got' to help homeless people through winter.

“I got a response from them about a month or two later but it was filled with statistics which meant nothing to me and were useless,” she said. “I wanted action, not excuses.

“So I approached local councillors in my area and people I thought would have some influence to support my campaign but everyone thought I was too young to make anything work.”

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Last week the girls organised a meeting with prefects from 20 Sydney schools and launched a competition to raise money and collect clothing for the homeless. They also have several other schools on board who were unable to make the meeting.

If she wins in her category, the young philanthropist plans to put the $10,000 ­towards making her campaign an ongoing project.

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“My aim is to get rid of homelessness altogether, there’s no need for people to be sleeping on the streets in a city like Sydney,” she said. “But then I want to focus on a different aspect to improve society every year. Next year we want to turn our attention to criminal activity.”