Major Grants Awarded
$1 million to Sustainable Gardening Australia Foundation over three years to establish communal gardens in bushfire affected communities
Sustainable Gardening Australia (SGA) is a non-government, non-profit organisation founded in 2003 to raise awareness of the environmental consequences of conventional gardening practices and to provide realistic and sustainable alternatives. SGA’s vision is that all Australians cultivate their gardens in sympathy with the environment by following the seasonal rhythms of the land, its ecology and its climate.
This grant, to be spread over three years, seeks to contribute to the recovery process of bushfire-affected communities by bringing the community together to address the impact of the fires on their local environment, through gardening. The project contains a number of interrelated goals: integration of psychological, social and environmental outcomes for community members affected by bushfires; the development of local skills, competencies and knowledge; and an opportunity for community members to come together and contribute to a common community project and support each other as individual landowners.
Aware that many of the communities affected by Black Saturday and the other 2009 bushfires face a difficult journey to re-establish and re-focus themselves, SGA’s project has three points of access to it that reflect the differing needs of individual communities and their ability, at this point in time, to engage in the project.
Firstly, the project seeks to establish Communal Demonstration Gardens in four different bushfire-affected communities. Communal Demonstration Gardens differ from community gardens in that, unlike community gardens where a limited number of people are provided with plots, thereby excluding others from participation, the Communal Demonstration Garden model provides a garden that is open to all members of the community to use on an as-needs basis as a learning resource and a place to meet and connect with others.
The second element of the project is to offer another six different bushfire-affected communities the opportunity to form local POD (produce, organic and diverse) Gardening Groups. The groups aim to connect neighbours together and strengthen community. People gather to meet, talk, learn and grow food, to share seeds, tools and muscle in each other’s gardens. The project is structured to create self-sustaining groups of neighbours who work together and support each other in growing produce sustainably in their backyards.
Thirdly, Sustainable Gardening Australia will produce a free “how to” manual, based on the experience of trialling the Communal Demonstration Gardens which will document the processes and pitfalls of establishing these model gardens from scratch. This publication will be available to all communities across Victoria, not just those affected by bushfire.
$300,000 to Australian Red Cross Victoria over three years for Youth Health & Wellbeing Bushfire Recovery Project
The Trust awarded this grant in April 2011 to conduct a youth health and recovery program in Kinglake and Marysville areas, the two worst affected locales. It involves a combination of two successful Red Cross youth programs ‘Talk Out Loud’ and ‘save-a-mate’ and follows extensive consultation with schools and community organisations in these regions, and as evidenced by increased mental health concerns, such as depression, self-harm and increasing drug and alcohol abuse in the wake of the bushfires.
The program will involve conducting sessions in schools and community groups and aims to:
strengthen the capacity of young people to support themselves and each other throught the process of recovery;
increase the ability of young people to prevent, recognise and respond to alcohol and drug-related emergencies;
reduce the incidence of associated risk-taking behaviour; promote strategies that foster positive mental health issues and self-care;
reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues and illness;
provide a forum for young people to share their coping mechanisms;
encourage young people to seek professional help and link them with other programs and services in the local community;
support young people’s leadership development and participation in community;
raise wider community awareness about the effects of emergency trauma on young people and how they can support their recovery.
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