Sustainability Leaders

This workshop revolves around a series of live interviews and participatory conversations with Sustainability Elders from our community.

There is a theory that it takes 10,000 hours, or 10 years, to become an expert or master. Whilst the exactness of this figure is somewhat of a provocative generalisation, knowledge and wisdom are not incubated without extensive practice, learning & intergenerational exchanges.

Hear the rarely told and heartfelt stories of community members who have dedicated their lives to the long-term and day-to-day applications of sustainability. From fields of environmental work to cultural expression, artistic creativity and political action. Take your own sustainability practices to the next level by learning from those who have made their own paths to the cutting edge.

What's included: 3 half-hour semi structured interviews with local sustainability elders and a summing-up reflective group talk asking the questions - ‘What can be learnt to help us sustain our sustainability practices?’ ‘What are our next steps?’. Our speakers include:

Kelly Gillespie

Kelly Gillespie is the Garden Manager and one of the founders of Fawkner Food Bowls Community Garden, and Propagation Coordinator at CERES Environment Park's propagation nursery. She is a qualified horticulturist with more than 20 years gardening, growing, and educating experience and holds a Bachelor of Biological Science. Kelly has particular interest in the areas of local and visible food production, empowering her community to take ownership of their food supply, and utilising the strengths, skills and local resources available to all of us to connect with each other.

Angelo Eliades 

Angelo is presenter, trainer and writer in the areas of sustainable gardening and permaculture. He has worked as a horticulturist in the garden nursery industry over the last ten years, writes for Good Organic Gardening Australia magazine, has a demonstration food forest garden in Melbourne’s inner suburbs, and runs the educational website Deep Green Permaculture .

Max Godber

Max draws from 15 years of work and volunteering experience in many aspects of the food cycle, from commercial production, transformation (cooking, baking & fermentation), waste reclamation and local community-based economies.  These experiences allow him to appreciate the complimentary roles of good governance and efficient management in a context of limited resources. His collaborations with various cooperatives and social enterprises in spaces such as food security, urban agriculture and community strengthening have allowed him to remain dynamic and innovative in his approach to building stronger and better connected communities around food.

The evening will include a light garden supper sourced from Feed You Farm, a peri-urban market garden cultivated by Preston local and Oakhill Food Justice Farmer, Jemma Stefanou.

Tickets: $35 with concessional pricing for students, pensioners and Darebin residents with financial barriers preventing participation.