"The Daily Telegraph" - 6th Feb.1999.

Tennis star Patrick Rafter has joined the battle against teenage social problems - and last night saw first hand the plight of Sydney's inner city youth. His sister, LOUISE RAFTER, tells of the family ties which moulded his social conscience....

It's the peer pressure that makes you do it. I was 15 and at a party when I was offered my first cigarette. The older kids said: "You have to do it." But I just ended up coughing and panting. There were 9 kids in our family and Mum and Dad have always said to us:

"We trust you. Don't lie to us, we are always here for you." So when those kind of temptations were put in front of us, we knew right from wrong - even though Mum and Dad knew we would be tempted to try things out. The scary thing today, though, is that it has gine beyond cigarettes - it's heavy drugs kids are experimenting with, and they are getting hooked straight away. I remember another party a few years ago with some friends from school.

When Dad dropped me off he could see kids wandering in with bottles, so he said to me: "Just give me a call if you want to come home early." Inside that party a lot of the kids were already drunk or stoned.

Someone said: "There's some stuff over there" - although the ones who had tried it were so out of control. It didn't take long for me to decide that there wasn't much happening for me there so I left at 10:30pm.

It is now that Patrick and I realise how fortunate we were, growing up in a large family that made us appreciate the simple things in life.

We got a lot of values from our parents. There was never a lot of money but Dad was always generous when the collection box came around in church on a Sunday.

It was the things like going camping and interacting as a family that were far more important than some of the things that I have to do now. Mum would spend almost a year preparing for the annual camping holiday, you can imagine it - she had one baby in her arms, one in her tummy and six kids running around her.

It was this upbringing - compared to that of some of the kids today - that made Patrick decide he wanted to give something back from the money he had made from tennis.

He gave some $350 000 of his winnings from the US Open in New York to the Starlight foundation to fund a leisure room for the terminally ill children at Brisbane Hospital.

Now he has a lot of interest in doing more to help others - setting up the Pat Rafter Cherish the Children Foundation - and wants to know precisely where the need is.

To that end Patrick asked me to go and see the work of Fr. Chris Reilly's acclaimed "Youth Off The Streets" on Tuesday. I met kids who had been sexually abused and others on drugs at one of the rehabilitation homes.

When Patrick arrived in Sydney that night, he said: "What did you see, what did you experience, what did you feel?" When I told him what I had learned about, his mouth just dropped. You could see his eyes bulging.

He had no idea of what was going on but when I took him through it, he just said: "Oh my God." He said: "How lucky are we?" I said to Patrick that, because of all the publicity going on about drugs, it was important for him to get involved. It would be good for kids to see high profile people prepared to make a stand and also for the kids to have a role model.

His response was typical Patrick. He said: "Let's kick this drugs issue in the guts."

Life doesn't have to be complicated, it can be simple. Mum and Dad were always saying to us, "Look out for each other."

When Patrick is away I do hospital visits for him. I take his posters along. I am not Pat, but I pull my long hair back so I look a little like him. When the kids see me they say, "You aren't Pat" but when I say, "Sorry, but here's a poster," their faces light up and they put the poster on their bed. Often they will then do a drawing for Pat and send it to him so they feel good because they are giving him something in return.

We keep a scrapbook of all their letters because Pat is hardly ever here. When he comes home he loves to look at all the things the kids have been doing, and without a doubt he is very touched.

I know that when he is settled he will look through the books and reflect on the impact he has had on these children. I think he will be looking forward to meeting the kids in the CBD and discovering first hand what they are experiencing.

He is going to play basketball with some of the kids - he wants to get involved and really interact with them.

Our next step will be to approach corporations, schools, and fundraising organisations who are looking to put their money somewhere. Patrick is going to support other organisations in the future.

This is just the beginning.

* As told to Tim Barlass.