EXAMPLES
OF COMMUNITY MUTUAL HELP
Go to Resources
CONTENTS
Gathering at Geoff and Norma Guest’s Farm 1992
The Rapid Creek Village Project
Government
Interest In the Rapid Creek Project
Connexion and Un-Inma Involvement In Manoora Urban Renewal Project
The Peckham Experiment Into Health Ecology
Emeritus Professor Stuart Hill
Lake Tinaroo Mediation Gathering
BACKGROUND
o 1992 Developing
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Drug and Substance Abuse Therapeutic
Communities Gathering.
Themes: Lowering Drug Abuse’ and ‘Therapeutic
Community as Alternatives to Criminal and Psychiatric Incarceration’.
o 1993 Relational
Mediation Gathering Celebration at Lake Tinaroo in the Atherton Tablelands
attended by remote area Aboriginal women and children
o 1994 ‘Small Island Coastal and Estuarine Women’s
Gathering Celebration’ on the Atherton Tablelands with the dual themes,
‘Stopping Family Violence’ and ‘Exploring Humane Alternatives to Criminal and
Psychiatric Incarceration’.
o 1993-1994 The Rapid Creek Project in Darwin
o 1994 the Star of the Sea Gathering in Townsville,
o 1998-1999 Manoora Urban Renewal Program
o Professor Violetta Bautista’s Action Research on
Children’s Resilience
o Professor Rex Haig’s Action Research on Enabling
Environments in the U.K.
Gathering
at Geoff and Norma Guest’s Farm 1992
Developing Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Drug and Substance Abuse
Therapeutic Communities Gathering
The
above Gathering is an exemplar of Community Mutual Help n. The Themes were:
Lowering Drug Abuse’ and ‘Therapeutic Community as Alternatives to Criminal and
Psychiatric Incarceration’.
Prime Minister Keating and Graham Richardson
the Federal Health Minister heard about this Gathering at Norma and Geoff’s
place and were very keen to fund the community networks associated with that
Gathering. These Community Networks refused to take the money. This segment
introduces why the Government of the day wanted to give money, and why the Community firmly refused to take money they
sorely needed.
A paper was written in 1993 in response to this request from the
Australian Federal Government’s Rural Health Support Education and Training
(RHSET), a section of the Federal Health Department to a Community Grassroots
Action (CGA) network called UN-INMA[1]
for this network to send in an application for funding. It is understood that Prime Minister Paul Keating and Health Minister Graham Richardson:
o
Had heard of UN-INMA Programs
in Remote Area Communities in the Australia Top End
o
Were keen to support their
wider application, and
o
Had requested RHSET to contact
UN-INMA to inform them:
o
That funding would be made
available and
o
How to apply for funds.
The UN-INMA Program’s themes and processes were
using holistic mutual-help in:
o
Stopping:
o
Family Violence
o
Inter-Generational Dysfunction
o
Self-Harm and Harm to Others
o
Civil Disobedience and
Criminality
o
Inter-Cultural Conflict
o
Re-socializing people who had
disconnected from self and others
o
Restoring and Sustaining
Biological, Psychological, Emotional, and Social Wellbeing
There were serious community concerns that
accepting government funding would inevitably
compromise Community Grassroots Action. Over fifty questions were to be
answered in the application form. Over 70% of the questions were not applicable
as all questions assumed Government Way was to be used. Community Grassroots
Action uses very different ways. There were sustained instances of mismatching.
The concern was that Government way would collapse
Community Grassroots Action. The 1993 Discussion Paper was carefully worded in
setting out the Community Networks’ concerns. Dr Les Spencer connected with
UN-INMA met with the Head of RHSET and Head of Programs, Head of Policy and
another senior department planner in Canberra. RHSET people said that they were
prepared to ‘bend all of their rules’ to accommodate community concerns. The
visitor encouraged a discussion in depth on the issues raised in the discussion
paper. At the end of this discussion it was agreed by all present that as at
1994:
o
The Federal Government had no framework for interfacing with
Community Grassroots Action
o
There were major differences between the Ways used by Government and
Community Grassroots Action
o
While RHSET was prepared to
bend their rules, Community Grassroots Action way would be inevitably
compromised and collapsed by
Government Way
o
RHSET people stated that the
Community Grassroots Action Way specified in the discussion paper was at
least 25 years ahead of its time
THE RAPID CREEK VILLAGE PROJECT
Written Feb
1994, Updated April 2014 & Mar 2017.
An exemplar
Project is the Rapid Creek Project. The Larrakia locality Gurambai (Rapid
Creek) is both a suburban region and a unique urban-based watershed and creek
system within the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Connexion and Family Nexus in association with intercultural people of the
Rapid Creek Community, are developing (1994) a micro-project to nurture
well-being socio-emotionally, economically and environmentally. This initiative
is drawing upon the constructive cultural diversity of the community for
expansion of productive economic opportunities afforded by Darwin’s proximity
to East Asia. Grassroots and long-grass family action is exploring the
resolution of socio-emotional issues like domestic violence, suicide, substance
abuse and keeping family members out of criminal justice and mental
institutions. As well, the aim is to skill families in well-being areas such as
relational mediating, intercultural healing action and developing grassroots
policy based on consensually evaluated and validated community action (refer
other file notes on these themes). Ideas are exploring Aboriginal and
multicultural healing cultural arts action and festivals. Action is weaving
together linked themes. This bottom-up project extends to involving the local
community in taking care of all aspects of the Rapid Creek catchment area. The
Project is resonant with the concept of Integrated
Local Area Planning (refer Social
Strategies for the Northern Territory - A Strategic Workshop, April 1993:
Office of Northern Development). Preliminary exploring is beginning with
Long-Grass Aboriginal bodies and communities, local government, Greening
Australia, as well as religious, welfare, health, artistic, multicultural and
educational groups.
Rapid Creek
is one of the few (and perhaps the only) intact urban-based watershed system
left in Australia. It embraces semi arid dry lands, paperbark communities,
eucalyptus woodlands, pandanus and grasslands, monsoon rainforest, as well as
wetlands and mangroves.
Paperbark
and pandanus beside Rapid Creek
The Rapid
Creek catchment area provides extensive habitat for local flora and fauna.
Rapid Creek
Mangroves – Fish spawning environment
The local
community also uses Rapid Creek as a beautiful leisure environment.
|
Many
parallel projects are coming together. They include practical rehabilitation
of flora and fauna by the Friends of Rapid Creek and active planning by the
Darwin City Council and Greening Australia. The more human nurturing family
oriented activities are focused around the Rapid Creek Water Gardens and
nearby Village shopping centre. This is where the oldest market in Darwin is
held in the car park and walkways on Sunday. |
|
|
|
The Rapid
Creek market has a strong Intercultural Tradition with colourful stalls being
run by people from many ethnic and cultural backgrounds including aboriginals
and people from Papua New Guinea and other Asian Pacific and European
countries. A number
of grassroots nurturing well-being groups are being attracted to operate from
this centre. All of the above action is developing a strong sense of
community. It is villaging within the city. In helping to remove impediments to social, environmental, and economic
wellbeing in Darwin, the Rapid Creek Village Project is developing a
micromodel perhaps with global applicability and with specific relevance in
developing Darwin as Australia's northern link to East Asia. |
GOVERNMENT INTEREST IN THE RAPID CREEK PROJECT
Prime Minister Keating’s Deputy, Brian Howe (1991–1995) became
interested in the Rapid Creek Project as a Model for exploring cooperative
action between the very different cultures operating within the Federal
Government Department of Local Government (Road Funding for Local Government),
the Territory Government, Darwin Council, other Local Councils and Aboriginal
Land Councils. The Head of the Federal Government Department of Local
Government invited Dr Les Spencer to Canberra in 1994 for a briefing on the
Rapid Creek Projects processes supporting cooperation between diverse cultures.
The Asia
Pacific Small Island Coastal and Estuarine Waters Women’s Gathering Celebration
in NE Australia – 1994
The Asia Pacific Small Island Coastal and Estuarine
Waters Women’s Gathering Celebration at Lake Tinaroo in the Atherton Tablelands
in Far North Queensland in June 1994 is another Precursor.
Neville was
continually scanning the World for relevant Conferences that he could use by
creating the possibility of having a local small gathering as a preparatory,
parallel, or follow-on conference, or gathering. In 1992, Neville had noticed
that the UN was holding a Small Island Development Conference in the Caribbean
in June 1994.
Neville and
Les talked about presuming that there was local Aboriginal and Islander
energy to host a follow-on gathering to that Caribbean Conference. Neville and
I wrote a letter using vague trance-like terms:
Ideas are evolving for the gathering of Small Island Coastal
and Estuarine peoples for the coming together as a follow-on Gathering
Celebration to the UN Small Island Development Conference in the Caribbean and
……
The attached Report provides an overview of
that Gathering Celebration.
Report to the United Nations
Human Rights Commission
The Asia Pacific Small Island Coastal and Estuarine
Waters People
Gathering Celebration in NE Australia - 1994
Written
1994. Last updated April 2014, and Mar 2017.
Dr Yeomans and Dr
Les Spencer drafted a number of letters that was sent to many international
governance and other bodies overseas. The letters stated words to the following
effect
Ideas are emerging
for a Gathering Celebration of Small Island Coastal and Estuarine Aboriginal
and Islander women and resonant others from across Australia for exploring
humane caring alternatives to criminal and psychiatric incarceration, for
soften substance abuse, and for stopping family violence using Aboriginal and
Island themes-based open-agenda Way and so word is going out to the
international community for funding support.
Some months later
a letter arrived from United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva that
they were sending money. The above mentioned gathering celebration was staged from
6-13 June 1994 at the Barrabadeen Scout Camp in Far North Queensland.
The Gathering used
the lower half of the larger Peninsula above
The venue was
magnificent. The area for the caring, sharing, learning gathering was set in a
warm serene atmosphere surrounded by the waters of Lake Tinaroo. There was
dormitory style accommodation provided for our older women and camping
facilities for others.
The view from the
Highway up to the Tablelands.
|
Approximately 500 people came together from all parts
of Australia to join in the gathering celebration on wellbeing action at a
grassroots level. It was also set up as a real reconciliation process
bringing black and white together to share and learn from differences and to
understand ways to continue a healing process. Aboriginal women attended from Broome, One Arm
Point, Djargin, Ceduna, Darnley Island, Cape York, Innisfail, Tully, Cairns
and surrounding districts. Non ATSI people also travelled long distances. |
Cathedral Tree not far from the Gathering |
Due to being
unable to acquire additional funds it was impossible to bring those
participants from the following South Pacific regions:
o Port Moresby PNG
o West Sepik PNG
o Solomon Islands
o Tonga
o New Caledonia
o Malaysia
o Indonesia
o Japan
o Taiwan
o Vietnam
This was a great
disappointment in the sense of real inter-cultural sharing learning; a lot of
organising and telephoning without any funds other than personal.
The individual
input and teamwork really pulled the festival together as UN funds did not
arrive until the last working day before the gathering began.
Down-to-Earth
(Vic) and the Australian Council of churches came to our aid with short term
loans. Unfortunately these also arrived just before the beginning of the
Gathering, adding to pressure.
BRIEF OVERVIEW
A brief overview
of the happenings of each day of the week is set out below:
Monday 6 June 1994
o Settling in and
orientation
o Cairns and
district Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Coop Workshop
o Welcoming new
arrivals
o Networking
o Discussion of lost
relatives
o Introduction to
NLP
o Fire circles and
storytelling
o Drumming, music
and dance
Tuesday 7 June
o Morning sharing
o Office of the
Status of Women Workshop
o Discussions on
Beijing Women's Conference 1995
o Discussions on Small
Islands Conference
o Discussions on
Montreal Conference
o Networking
o The importance of
NLP Therapy among Indigenous People
o Fire circles and
storytelling
o Drumming, music
and dance
Wednesday 8 June
o Morning prayer -
cancer patient
o Morning sharing
gathering
o Visit to
Tablelands Women's Resource Centre
o Sharing of
Information
o Networking
o Visit to White
Rock - Reconciling living relations
o Discussion on
international healing gatherings being held in the region
o Fire circles and
storytelling
o Drumming, music
and dance
Thursday 9 June
o Morning Sharing -
speaking from the heart
o Women's discussion
o Men's discussion
o Sharing discussion
o Networking
o Alternatives to
psychiatric and correctional services
o Fire circles and
storytelling
o Drumming, music
and dance
Friday 10 June
o Morning Sharing
o Networking
o Sweat Lodge (8
hour process)
o Intercultural
circle dancing
o Shopping - social
interaction - Local area visits
o Canoeing, fishing
walking
o Fire circles and
storytelling
o Drumming, music
and dance
Saturday 11 June
o Morning sharing
o Networking
o Preparation of
Food for Kup Murri (traditional Island under-ground cooking)
o Intercultural
circle dancing
o Musical Workshop -
Traditional and contemporary arts
o Sharing Food of
Kup Murri with Eddie Mabo Junior
o Cultural Artistry
- Dance, tumbling, acrobatics, fire stick twirling and dancing, drumming
o Fire circles and
storytelling
Sunday 12 June
o Morning Sharing
o Feedback
o Networking
o Further feedback
on the UN Small Island Conference held in the Caribbean
o BAMA Healing
Centre Visit
o NLP Workshops
o Fire circles and
storytelling
o Drumming, music
and dance
Monday 13 June
o Feedback and
debriefing
o networking
o final farewells
As participants
departed much empowered from the weeklong Festival Gathering the feedback was overwhelming
and the rapport seemed set for a life time.
We are extremely
grateful to you for enabling us to stage such a Gathering for the first time in
Australia.
CONNEXION
AND UN-INMA INVOLVEMENT IN MANOORA URBAN RENEWAL
PROJECT
Another
Precursor Project to the Master Plan was the Manoora Urban Renewal Project.
In October 2004 Connexion
funded David Cruise, a Down To Earth director (accompanied by his son Matthew
who paid his own way) to visit Geoff and Norma Guest at Petford (Geoff is
another Consultant supporting the Master Plan) and visited Mareja Bin Juda (now
deceased) and her Manoora Project in Cairns. This project like some other INMA
praxis engaged in cooperative action with State and Local Government. Resonant
with the Rapid Creek Project in Darwin, Mareja worked closely with the
Queensland State Government, the Cairns City council as well as the local
Aboriginal and Islander Community of the suburb of Manoora in Cairns in a large
scale whole community urban renewal project.
Photo of Mareja Bin
Juda at Manoora
– D. Cruise’s Archives – Used with Permission
Mareja (now deceased)
enabled many in the Manoora Aboriginal and Islander Community to engage in
mutual help in supporting the urban renewal project. Ten years earlier Mareja
had taken a 60-seater busload of women and children from Manoora for the NCADA
funded gathering at Geoff and Norma Guest’s Healing Farm at Petford (discussed
in Chapter Eleven). Mareja was able to refer back to that Petford experience in
mobilizing these women in the urban renewal project.
For the Project Mareja
energized a group of Aboriginal and Islander women (some elderly) in doing day
and night voluntary safety audits of streets, footpaths, pathways, lighting and
other potential hazards. Mareja also energized Aboriginal and Islander youth to
prepare a Transport Revamp Project Report that the Cairns Council stated was
equal to a professional report; this report was used by the council in its
deliberations.
David Cruise and Dr Les
Spencer videoed Mareja at the Project talking about how she encouraged
involvement:
See this tree. This is like
the Project. I am way out here on the end of this branch. The branch is the
Cairns council. The other branches are all them government mob, and you are the
roots down here in the earth. And the whole Project is evolving through all of
you mob and you can draw upon all this tree’s energy and make it all grow how
you want in your place
Mareja with community and
Project backing created a process whereby each family could decide how they
wanted the money allotted in upgrading their public housing property; some
wanted carports, others opted for covered verandas for breezeways and outdoor
shade, and others wanted palms and other garden shrubs (this is resonant with
Fraser House patients being asked their views on Sydney landscaping).
|
Prior
to this Project, one large housing complex in Manoora was virtually without any
greenery and extremely hot in the tropical summer and a place of civil
disobedience. This complex was turned into a beautiful ‘resort’ like
atmosphere with many large palms and tropical plants, shade areas and lawns
with sprinkler systems. The
Project supplied the trees, plants and equipment to dig holes and move earth.
The
local residents supplied the voluntary labour to plant and maintain the
greenery. Mareja told Dr Les Spencer in 2003 that along with the habitat, the
sociocultural tone of the place was turned around completely in twelve months
with the crime rates significantly lower. . |
The
Housing Complex After Supported Community Self-Help Action
- Photo from D. Cruise’s Archives |
This
housing renewal project is resonant with the Enabling Environments energy in
the UK that Dr Rex Haig is linked with (Rex is another Consultant supporting the
evolving of the Master Plan. The local community decided what they wanted to do
about a dark park in their area that was unsafe. They decided that the tops of
the trees be floodlit at night by using hidden soft green lights facing
upwards. Now the whole park is like an enchanted forest at night.
|
The
Floodlit Park by Day Photo
from D. Cruise’s Archives |
Strife in the park has dropped markedly. In the process,
disadvantaged Aboriginal and Islander people found their voice. They gained
group and community competencies and strengthened family and friend support
networks. |
In 1993
Neville, Terry Widders and Les Spencer wrote the paper Government and Facilitating
Grass Roots Action. A quote:
In this
paper the term 'grassroots' is used in the sense of 'the common folk'. Often
the people involved have never engaged in socio-cultural action before - have
never been on a committee, exercised any problem solving effectiveness or
dreamt that they could have an effect.
The Peckham Experiment into Health
Ecology
An Old Study
with Modern Implications
The Peckham
Experiment was conducted at the Pioneer Health Centre, in a part of London called
Peckham, in a period just before and just after WWII. Despite differences between societies then
and now, I consider that much may be learned from this ground-breaking
experiment into health.
Both the
Centre and the Experiment were initiated by Dr. Scott Williamson and his wife
Dr. Innes Pearse to discover the “causes of health”. They had conducted health surveys in London
and were disturbed to find firstly that only 10% of the population had no
detectable disorders, secondly that 80% of those with disorders were unaware of
their condition, and thirdly that although medical intervention may alleviate
some of these conditions, they did not significantly alter these above
statistics. They regarded themselves as
“biologists” rather than medical researchers in their pursuit of the causes of
health.
With money
from the Nuffield Foundation they were able to build and in 1935 open the
Centre, which was designed to meet the recreational, communal and health needs
of the local population, who paid a small weekly family membership fee to be
have access to the resources of this ‘Club’.
In exchange for this, they agreed to their activities and health status
being monitored by the doctors. For further notes on the design of the Centre
see Peck (1980).
Throughout
the 15-year period during which the Centre functioned in this way, over 1,000
families used it and it received over 10,000 visitors a year. Eight books (see especially Stallibrass 1989,
“Being Me and Also Us”) have been written and two films have been made about
the Peckham Experiment. Many of those associated with it believe that it is the
most important experiment in health that has ever been conducted, and that if
the lessons learned were implemented around the world today the gains in health
and wellbeing would be enormous.
The
description of the experiment and its findings are summarised in the following
dot-points.
o
Over 1,000 families (up to 550 at any one
time).
o
Access to a range of facilities (pool, gym
etc.).
o
Glass walls (all activity areas visually
accessible).
o
Free to choose activities (but recorded).
o
Minimal supervision.
o
Organic cafeteria (linked to farm).
o
Annual ‘health’ audit as a family (where you
‘stand’).
o
Access to essential information (talks,
referrals, networking, interest-groups, gossip etc.).
o
No marriage breakdowns.
o
No bullying and only one accident.
o
Low interest and participation in competitive
games.
o
High-level collaboration and joint projects.
o
High skill acquisition.
o
Improved health and wellbeing.
o
Increased creativity.
Keys:
o
Supportive environment.
o
Freedom to be spontaneous.
o
Non-judgemental feedback.
o
Supportive vs intrusive/manipulative
staff.
o
Support during narrow windows of change
(puberty, forming primary relationships, pregnancy, birth etc.).
Health: (a
process)
o
Contagious.
o
Spontaneity.
o
Facility for mutual synthesis with others and
the environment
All of its
numerous important discoveries coalesced around the central concept that health
is a process (not a product) that requires freedom and opportunity to
experience being in a relationship of mutual synthesis with the
environment. Health is thus emergent
from acts of spontaneity. What the
Centre provided was a context and an approach to activity enablement that
supported and facilitated such freedom, experience and spontaneity. Indeed, in such an environment, they found
that health became ‘contagious’. Of
particular importance was the preparation for and subsequent caring for an
addition to a family.
These
findings have relevance to every area – personal, social and environmental –
where health and wellbeing are desired goals.
Sadly most health practitioners remain unaware of the Peckham findings
and are still constrained by the limited possibilities of the traditional
‘medical model’. Thus, the opportunity
to make the conditions for health universally available remains as a challenge
to those willing to dare to apply and further develop the findings of
Williamson and Pearse and their colleagues in Peckham. The Pioneer Health Centre Ltd. (Hon.Sec. Lisa
Curtice – LJCurtice@aol.com) still exists and continues to be committed to
furthering this goal.
Barlow, K. 1988. Recognising Health. Kenneth Barlow, 24
Paddington St., London W1M 4DR. 142 pp.
Pearse, I.H 1979. The Quality of Life: The Peckham Approach to Human
Ethology. Scottish Academic, Edinburgh. 194 pp.
Pearse, I.H. & L.H. Crocker 1943. The Peckham Experiment: A Study
of the livings Structure of Society. Allen & Unwin, London (rpr.
Scottish Academic, Edinburgh; 1985). 333 pp.
Pearse, I.H. & G.S. Willamson 1931. The Case for Action.
Faber & Faber, London (rpr. Scottish Academic, Edinburgh; 1985). 162 pp.
Peck, A.J.A. 1980. The Vision Splendid: Agoric Planning. Three
Sisters Books, P.O. Box 2506, Harare, Zimbabwe. 98 pp.
Scott-Samuel, A. (ed.) 1992. Total Participation, Total Health:
Re-inventing the Peckham Health Centre for the 1990s. Scottish Academic,
Edinburgh. 48 pp. [http://www.gseu.org.uk/people/scott.htm]
Stallibrass, A. 1974. The
Self-Respecting Child. Thames & Hudson, London (rpr. Penguin 1978,
Warner 1979, Addison-Wesley 1989). 341 pp.
Stallibrass, A. 1989. Being Me and
Also Us: Lessons from the Peckham Experiment. Scottish Academic, Edinburgh.
275 pp.
Williamson, G.S. & I.H. Pearse 1938. Biologists in Search of
Material. Faber & Faber, London (rpr. Scottish Academic, Edinburgh;
1985). 107 pp.
Williamson, G.S. & I.H. Pearse 1965. Science, Synthesis and
Sanity: An Enquiry into the Nature of Living. (rpr. Scottish Academic,
Edinburgh, 1986). 352 pp.
See also the following web sites:
http://www.thephf.org.uk;
http://www.open2.net/modernity/3_6.htm; http://www.coopergraham.supanet.com/HDBeacon.html; http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=4607&inst_id=20; http://www.ru.org/stalib.htm; http://www.concordvideo.co.uk/me95m10.html; http://www.healthyliving.org.uk/project.htm; http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/olfahack/speke1.htm; http://www.communiversity.org.uk/page8.html;
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/vo961119/text/61119-12.htm; http://www.therapeuticcommunities.org/journal-nofoundation.htm
Notes by: Professor Stuart
B. Hill, Foundation Chair of Social Ecology & Head of Program, School of
Education (includes previous School of Social Ecology and Lifelong Learning), University of Western Sydney (Kingswood
Campus), Locked Bag 1797, PENRITH SOUTH DC NSW 1797, AUSTRALIA
LETTERS OF
SUPPORT FOLLOW
COMMUNITY
MUTUAL HELP THRIVING FUTURES PROGRAM I would like to write and offer
our support for Enabling Environments and Community methods being used in
the above Program supporting return to wellness in both Environments and
Communities. There is excellent fit between our various entities listed on
the left and similar and resonant ways of the European Australasia East
Asia Oceania Regions. The concept of bringing all these transformative ways
together in one global showcase is inspired As a result of twelve years
work in Enabling Environments in the UK, Europe, and further afield
(including Australasia), we have found that the best definition of the work
is by identifying the values upon which it is based. We would be very interested
in the extent to which our ‘values-based standards’ could be used as a
benchmark of rigour and quality in this proposed Macro Program. We are also
developing a quality award for ‘emotionally intelligent’ psychosocial
environments (the “Enabling Environments Award”) and would be keen to pilot
its use in this Program setting. In the event that this collaboration
is not practicable or possible, we would wish the Thriving Futures
proposals the very best of good fortune in Being a Global Model helping to
mend lives and environments severely affected by pollution. Prof Rex Haigh MA (Cantab) BM BCh (Oxon) FRCPsych Memb Inst GA –
Nottingham University Consultant
Psychiatrist, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Project
Lead, Positive Environments, Royal College of Psychiatrists Chair,
Growing Better Lives, Community Interest Company Senior
Fellow, Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham University
Further information:
www.enablingenvironments.com
www.communityofcommunities.org.uk
Further References:
Emeritus
Professor Stuart Hill
Foundation Chair of Social Ecology –
University of Western Sydney
THRIVING FUTURES PROGRAM
I write and
offer support for The Thriving Futures Program – green cities, environmental
remediation, and deep social ecology methods supporting return to wellness in
polluted Environments and Communities. The Thriving Futures Program draws upon
ecological and social ecological pioneers in extending understandings of
fast-tracking what takes nature 1000s of years to achieve. I have worked
closely with Program Developers over the past ten years. I highly commend their
work.
Emeritus Professor Stuart Hill
Clinical
Psychologist Psychology Department -
University of Philippines, Quezon, Philippines
THRIVING FUTURES PROGRAM (Keyline and
Cultural Keyline)
I have worked and co-facilitated workshops and gatherings with people
of the Macro Program in both the Philippines and Australia. These have covered
areas of clinical, social and community psychology and clinical sociology. The
Thriving Futures Program is a World pioneer in community psychiatric practice,
grassroots wellbeing mutual support action, as well as being innovative in
evolving psychosocial emergency response networks. The Program’s linking of
thriving nature and thriving human nature is very resonant with Filipino way.
I have experienced personally the potency of the
Programs large group (200) work, witnessed the sensitive and profound
psychotherapy and experienced the extended community networking the Thriving
Futures Program has played a significant role in evolving. A number of my work
colleagues at the University have worked alongside Thriving Futures Program
people in various contexts through the SE Asia Oceania Australasia Region and
have provided strong support for this work. I am familiar with ‘Cultural Keyline’. This model
may be used as a framework for working well with complex inter-connected
inter-related, and inter-dependent social phenomena.
Professor
Violeta Bautista
David Holmgren –
Cofounder of Permaculture
HOLMGREN DESIGN
SERVICES
16 Fourteenth
St, Hepburn Victoria. 3461
Phone: 03 53483636
Email:
info@holmgren.com.au
Web site: www.holmgren.com.au.
The source of Permaculture vision and innovation
Statement of
Support
The properties
known as Yobarnie and Nevallan at North Richmond represent heritage sites of
local, national and international heritage significance. Despite years of
neglect, the Keyline systems implemented by P.A. Yeomans in the 1950’s and
1960’s are still largely intact and functional.
In the research
work that I did with Bill Mollison in the 1970’s developing the Permaculture
concept, we identified the Keyline system of landscape analysis, soil
development and water harvesting developed by P.A. Yeomans as the only
example (in the world) of modern functional landscape design that provided
a precursor to Permaculture as ecologically functional landscape design.
The teaching of Keyline within Permaculture Design Courses has spread the
awareness and application of Keyline around the world over the last 25 years
beyond that achieved by the extensive documentation in books, film and other
media by Yeomans in the 1950’s and 60’s. The North Richmond properties featured
strongly in all of that teaching and documentation and as a consequence have
iconic status that should be celebrated as national landscape treasures. While
awareness of the importance of these heritage sites within the local and
general community might not be great, within the global networks of ecological
sustainable land and water use, these properties are icons of international
importance. They should immediately be given the highest protection as national
heritage sites because this is where P.A. Yeomans actually developed the
Keyline system.
Any development
on these sites should conserve, maintain and utilize the Keyline water
harvesting and management system as a basis for any settlement pattern. Any
development that destroyed the Keyline system would be vandalism that would
reflect badly on the N.S.W. planning system and more generally on Australians’
understanding and respect for the greatest work of one of our ecological
pioneers.
David Holmgren, Co-originator
of the Permaculture concept
3rd, March 2009
Lake Tinaroo
Mediation Gathering
Another Precursor
to the Master Plan is the Lake Tinaroo Mediation Gathering. Dr Neville
Yeomans organized local Aboriginal and Islander women around Atherton to host
the Lake Tinaroo Mediation Gathering in November 1993, held at Lake Tinaroo
near Atherton on the Atherton Tablelands. A number of Aboriginal nurturer women
did a round trip of 6,318 kms from Yirrkala in Northern Territory and other
remote communities in the Top End and participated in co-learning at this
Gathering. Mediation Therapy was a key theme. The following photo was taken at
the Gathering.
Neville with
the Yirrkala Women and Children – From M.
Roberts’ Archives – Used with Permission
