At Picture You in Agriculture we love it when people ask us

“What are you most proud of?”

Our response

 We believe people are our greatest resource. We are proud to be a people centric organisation. We bring people doing great stuff together so they can do more great stuff together.

In our work with schools, we advise them to consider the following questions.

• What does community mean to you?
• What resources are there in your school community you could tap into?
• What are you doing already?
• What new partnerships could you build?
• What can you do to build the capacity of your local community?

And our program evaluations are consistently showing the capcity building model is working

We are supporting teachers to empower their students to drive behavoiral change

“This project has been life changing for our school, families and staff! I am now a town coordinator for Kids4Kids! I have changed my recycling habits at home and have helped many staff and family members to do the same. When it’s explained to most people, they are happy to get on board. Kreative Koalas has been a good conversation starter to introduce people who might think it’s all too hard…it’s not! It’s been wonderful working with our local council and schools. It was just what we needed to get the ball rolling. We look forward to our 2020 projects!”

Teacher quotes:

“Knowing that it is possible for a community to change their habits through education we were able to engage our community hub (multicultural group of women) to implement ways of upcycling old clothing. Kreative Koalas also allowed us to value and take advantage of our community stakeholders who hold wonderful expertise .”

“Although we are very close to our other local schools, we don’t tend to associate with them. If we hadn’t participated in the Kreative Koalas project it probably wouldn’t have crossed our mind to include other members of our community. We are glad KK has opened our eyes to including others in our projects!”

 

Teacher comments indicate students were actively changing themselves, their families, and communities:

 

 

“Students were actively talking about the problem and their solutions at home. I had many parents express to me how engaged their children were at home about this project. “

Over 50% of the schools reported partnering with Aboriginal Land Councils resulting in comments like this

Just like our young Aboriginal Girl’s Group, this koala is a young female in an uncertain world. The Worimi girls are traditional custodians and they feel connected to their lands. Mother Earth has always provided for First Nation people a feeling of connection, a sense of belonging to the Earth, to all living things – the animals, the trees, the stars, one another.”

and this 

” Our students were talking about connection to country and development of their understanding as future custodians of Worimi lands. What this responsibility may look like and what they can do to shape the future in positive and caring ways…sustainable ways to ensure the success and care of future custodians like themselves and also of all creatures themselves and importantly, the land to which they inherently belong.”

and this

“Vacy is a country village in the Dungog Shire.  My class 3/4 along with the Aboriginal students from 5/6 looked at how our use of the land in Vacy has changed over time. What do farmers (our families) grow/raise here now? Why? What are we eating for morning tea?( lots of packet food!) Is this good for the land? What did the Wonorua people eat for food? How did they survive and thrive for millions of years sustainably? …..The black shadows [on our koala] are the spirits of the Wonorua people guiding us to live in harmony with the land as they once did”                                                                                                                     

It goes without saying young people are our legacy.

When we give them ownership of the problem, support their teachers with professional learning and surround them with community experts they believe anything is possible and they prove it is

Special shoutout to our funding partners for sharing our ethos of putting people first and investing in their growth and wellbeing