BRIDGING THE RURAL – URBAN DIVIDE
The next steps
Our first The Bridging the Rural–Urban Divide workshop for our Young Farming Champions began the young farming champions journey to create multimedia products, training them for what they can expect going into schools, getting them to think about what messages they want to convey, and how, to their different audiences.
The workshop provided learning opportunities for the young farming champions that were tailored to their requirements as advocates for agriculture, as well as enhancing opportunities for these farmers to network amongst other young dairy farmers from different primary industries. They got to see their similarities, they found common ground, they realised each has issues that are just as challenging, and they learnt how they can help each other.
The workshop also provided access to information and advisors on priority issues of concern to the community and enabled participants to learn from experienced mentors.
Next steps
The Young Farming Champions’ intentions are not to “educate” people about agriculture, but rather create opportunities for an exchange of information and ideas between young people from both our cities and rural areas.
Throughout the year, the Young Farming Champions will visit schools to bridge the divide by providing a young face of farming that students will be able to relate to and supporting those students participating in the Archibull Prize with information and ideas.
The farmers are also developing short films, which will tell their story and give everyone a chance to look around their farms. Using multimedia to tell their stories is an important way to engage with a larger group of students from around Australia (and the world!).
Check out what Emma has to say to next gen urban http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qXFtm6eDFI Sure to inspire other young people to follow her journey
Always learning, the Young Farming Champions will meet again in November to share their experiences with each other. This will be an opportunity to evaluate the partnerships they are forging with city-based students and consider how to increase the levels of understanding they are developing.
In 2012 the program aims to expand to include a greater number of industries and young farmers. The work the Young Farming Champions are doing now will underpin the growth of the program to benefit our whole community.