Fusion Mornington Peninsula

What Fusion does on the Peninsula

Fusion Mornington Peninsula is a grassroots organisation that has been working with young people in the local community for more than forty years. It is part of Fusion Australia, a national youth and community organisation that operates on the principle that people matter and that young people in particular are worth investing in well, for a long time.

The work happens in several places at once: a supported residential community, schools across the Peninsula, mentoring relationships, employability programs, family courses and playgroups, and the practical case management that holds it all together. Each piece is meaningful on its own. Together they are the kind of long-running scaffolding that lets a young person who has had a hard start at home, actually arrive at a stable adult life.

The Mt Martha residence

At the centre of Fusion’s Peninsula work is a supported accommodation service in Mt Martha. The residence is open to young people aged 15 to 21 who are at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness. It is a residential community, not a hostel, young people seeking support live alongside experienced adult lead tenants who share the same space and the same daily life.

The model is intentional. Practical life skills sit at the foundation: residents take turns cooking dinner and cleaning up afterwards, join the weekly community cleaning night, and contribute to monthly outdoor working bees. The work of running a home together is part of the program. Stable long-term housing, education and training, employment pathways, mental health support, alcohol-and-drug support where required, driver’s licence assistance through the L2P program, and legal help are all connected through case management.

Why this matters locally

Youth homelessness on the Peninsula is mostly invisible. It does not look like the image people carry in their head, rough sleeping under bridges. It looks like couch surfing, sleeping in cars, staying in unsafe homes because there is no other option. By the time it becomes visible, the choices a young person has are already limited. Fusion’s work is in the earlier window where intervention still changes the arc.

This is local work, in a place we know. Mt Martha is fifteen minutes from the Agile IT Mornington base. The young people Fusion supports are growing up in the same communities our clients and staff live in. The Peninsula needs this organisation to keep doing what it does.

How Agile IT supports Fusion

Fusion Mornington Peninsula sits naturally alongside Opportunity International Australia in our giving. One is global, one is local. One works through small business loans to families overseas. One works through residential care, mentoring and schools work on the Peninsula. Different mechanisms, the same idea: invest in people early and consistently, and the rest of the work gets easier.

Fusion is also a local organisation, which matters. We do business here, and we want the Peninsula to keep being the kind of place that supports its own young people through the hard part. The work Fusion does is the work that holds a community together.

Our particular focus is on Fusion The Village, the $3 million purpose-built housing project for young women and families fleeing domestic violence, breaking ground in Mt Martha in 2026. It is the kind of community-led capital project that needs broad-based local support to get built. Agile IT is one of many businesses on the Peninsula contributing.