Month: January 2020

Seven-year-old Holly is not only a member of Geelong Beekeeping Club but she is also part of Transition Street Newtown for kids. She has a love for gardening, making teas and garden science projects. She wants to see little people taking an interest in gardening and recycling. “They can recycle their toys and clothes for use in the garden to make wonderful outdoor play items.”

Holly has appeared on Vasili’s Garden Show on Channel 7two. She spoke with her mother about ‘Growing Food! Skills for Children and Adults’ at The Eastern Hub, Geelong on 19 January where she received an overwhelming response. Considering she is only seven she is a confident speaker in front of a large audience of adults. She’ll be speaking once a month in a Transitions Street Newtown group to encourage children to garden and enjoy all that nature has to offer that commenced on 26 Jan 2020 for a group of up to 8 people.

Continue reading “Holly.” →

I know, she isn’t a Human, but isn’t she cute! Meet Penny, she’s Geelong’s first Story Dog. She listens to children read. She doesn’t laugh at them or correct them. She’s non-judgmental. But the facts show she is helping children succeed. It’s fun for the children, their focus improves, their confidence soars and so do their reading skills.

Story Dogs, a non-profit, was founded by two Mums, Janine Sigley and Leah Sheldon and in 2009 in Murwillumbah, NSW. www.storydogs.org.au The mission is to ‘make reading fun for children, so they become confident, lifelong readers.’

This highly successful program is finally coming to Geelong. Story Dogs are on the lookout for Primary Schools that would like to participate. There is no cost to the school and no cost to the students as sponsors fit the bill.

Continue reading “Penny the Story Dog.” →

From small ideas great things grow. After getting married and starting her family, Primary School teacher, Del Renton would spend hours searching various websites, and accessing various Facebook pages to try to find activities around Geelong that would be child-friendly and be of interest to her family and friends.  Five years ago, this busy ‘new mum’ had a brilliant idea to put all of this information in one easy to find place so others could also look at things being posted and not have to spend hours searching various websites.  As we know, the days of reading a newspaper and circling various events has now been surpassed by social media.  With phones in our hands and most of us on Facebook, WhatToDo Geelong was born. https://www.whattodogeelong.com.au/

 

Creating a Facebook page which collects information pertaining to our beautiful region was envisaged by Del, making initial contact with businesses and events coordinators around Geelong, to ask if she could share their information on a Facebook page.  Soon ‘word of mouth’ took over and those same businesses and events coordinators were contacting her.

Continue reading “What to do Geelong, Del.” →

Do you love an inspiring story? Don’t miss ‘They cannot take the Sky’, a multimedia installation that presents the stories of people with lived experience of seeking asylum. The stories are at times shocking, at times hilarious, extraordinary and devastating. ‘They cannot take the Sky’ is showing at the Eastern Hub’, Rachinger Gallery until January 31^st. The gallery is open 9am – 5pm weekdays and there is no cost.

The men and women featured in this exhibition are diverse and individual, their experiences unique and often surprising. You can listen to voices that are so often absent from public discussion. You’ll hear about the reasons people flee their homes, their perilous journeys in search of safety, and the banality of daily life in detention.

You can listen to audio stories and view videos on a range of screens. Photographic portraits accompany the show. This is a profoundly moving exhibition that shines a light on the lives of people willing to share their own individual stories in spite of the risks of retribution both here and overseas.

Behind the Wire, an oral history project documenting stories from detention, developed the exhibition in collaboration with Victoria’s Immigration Museum. From Geelong the exhibition travels to Bendigo, Shepparton and on to Ballarat.

Don’t miss this moving, unique collaboration between Behind the Wire and Road to Refuge.

Photo: supplied

We are SO excited to announce that we have more Humans in Geelong books available. The first lot where so popular, they’ve all gone. They went free to schools, libraries and community groups thanks to the State Government Grant ‘Pick my Project’ and our auspice Geelong Sustainability . Please DM or email humansingeelong@gmail.com if you are interested in getting your hands on some of these colourful, inspiring, coffee table books that are full of ‘good news’ stories of our amazing and diverse locals.

We’d like to thank our friends at Snap Geelong for making this reprint possible. Thanks to Villawood Properties for generously helping with storage and the guys at CBD movers.

The books will also be available at the Pako Festa and when we present at Geelong Design Week . Pop Tuesday March 24^th 7.30-8.30pm in the diary. Our Geelong Design Week talk is presented in Partnership with Geelong Regional Library Corporation at the Dome, The High Ground, Wurdi Youang, Level 5, Geelong Library & Heritage Centre. Tickets will be available via Eventbrite soon.

Continue reading “Humans in Geelong Books.” →

Geelong’s Chris Hall has a goal – to raise as much money for motor neurone disease (MND) as possible.  And in just under four years of fundraising, Chris has ticked over $30,000 to support research towards finding a cure for the disease. His quest began after work colleague Jenny Simko, a nurse at Barwon Health, was diagnosed with MND. She passed away 14 months later in 2015.

“Until then I didn’t know what MND was. I read up on it and found there was no treatment and no cure.”

Chris, who is confined to a wheelchair through Spina Bifida thought: “How can I raise money and help raise awareness of this disease?”

“There are now all sorts of treatments and preventions now for Spina Bifida but learning that there is no cure for the disease really got to me.”

Chris decided he could raise awareness for his charity work via ‘Wheel4MND’ – an initiative where he is wheeling 50km each month. This led to people wanting to sponsor his wheeling.

Continue reading “Chris Hall, Wheel 4 MND.” →

“I was born in a Thailand refugee camp, known as Mae Surin, but around the age of 3, my family and I moved to Karenni Refugee Camp 1. We lived there until we came to Australia. I lived there with my brother and both parents. I went to a school with my brother. We would finish and come home at lunchtime whereas my parents would come home late because of work. After school, we either studied or we’d go and play with friends. Over the weekend, I’d spend my time with family. On Sunday I went to church and Sunday school. I was provided with everything that I could possibly get, but sometimes things could get tough, especially when I had to spend late nights alone with my brother due to both mum and dad working.”

Moo K’Phru Say is a 20-year-old Karenni refugee. “I came to Australia in 2009. I was 9 years old, there was only four of us at the time we came to Australia, but mum had another baby here. I was very excited when I arrived in Australia! Everything was different: the housing, the streets, shops and many other stuff. I even got to see my relatives who I haven’t seen in a long time.”

Continue reading “Moo K’Phru.” →

“That man in the painting is in his 70s and he still sleeps with an axe under his bed because of the abuse he suffered in an orphanage. CLAN, Care Leavers Australasia Network was set up to support these people. I will not stop until they receive justice.” I interviewed Leonie Sheedy, one of the founding members of CLAN, in the temporary home of the Australian Orphanage Museum at 62 McKillop St. Geelong. Leonie was in St Catherine’s Orphanage for Girls from 3 – 16 years of age.

Leonie was pointing out the portraits of the people on the outer edge of the impressive memorial painting, ‘The Raft of the Clan’. It is painted in the style of ‘The Raft of the Medusa’ by a Melbourne born artist, Peter Daverington to acknowledge the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2012 – 2017) launched by Julia Gillard.

Leonie told me many harrowing stories and a visit to the museum is well-warranted. Care Leavers are also called ‘Homies’ or ‘Wardies’ and used a lot of prison language because that was what it was like.

Continue reading “CLAN – Care Leavers Australasia Network, Leonie.” →

“Geelong Mummas Mingle is about making connections, finding your tribe, building a support network and having lots of fun and adventures!  It’s a smaller, sister group of the Geelong Mummas Facebook group which has over 9000 local members. The main page is for mums to be able to seek advice, recommendations and to share the daily struggle of being a mum in a non-judgemental environment. Respect, compassion, friendship, empathy, advice and understanding are our values.

“The sister group, Geelong Mummas Mingle, was created to help create support and friendship within our community. We hold a range of different catch ups each week and welcome new members. We have so many fabulous plans for Mingle in 2020 and we would love to share a glimpse of what is ahead. We are shaking things up and doing some rearranging of pre-existing events to make them even better.

Continue reading “Geelong Mummas Mingle.” →