Category / Partnerships

by Action4Agriculture

🌱📚 A Journey to Regeneration with Belltrees Public School 🚀

At Action4Agriculture we believe tomorrow’s problems can be solved today, if we can break down silo thinking and move beyond self interest to a collaborative model that sees people and organisations working together for the greater good.

Today we celebrate Belltrees Public School and their collaborators – a beacon of hope showing others it can be done

 

“Go to the experts and then bring the experts back”

Belltrees Public is a small school with big ambitions. Located east of Scone in the Upper Hunter Valley, this school, which in 2023 has only 3 students, is on a mission to become the greenest little school in Australia.

Students engage in a range of sustainability-based programs, led by a Youth Environmental Council, including carbon-emission reduction, waste minimisation and slow food but it is their award-winning (National Sustainable Communities – Young Legend award) journey to agricultural regeneration that truly showcases the power of entrusting our future to the young.

The catalyst for this remarkable journey was a barren school paddock. While standing around this area, void of life in 2019’s challenging drought, a question was asked to local farmer, Rob Scott:

“How do we prepare these students for the challenges they’ll face with changing climatic conditions?”

Rob replied: “Have you heard of regenerative farming?”

Rob’s response prompted a school visit to the Mulloon Institute at Bungendore in NSW, but this was more than a simple excursion.

“Belltrees Public School wanted to support the community in the midst of the worst drought in a century. So, in discussion with Rob, we set the task of hosting an excursion for local farmers to come with the school to learn about regenerative agriculture principles. We secured funding to ensure no farmers were financially restricted from attending, organised our experts and opened it up to students, families and local farmers to attend,” Belltrees principal Shane Roberts says.

Following their adopted motto of “go to the experts and then bring the experts back”, in 2021 the school community hosted a field day on their grounds. Special guest was Martin Royds, who took the opportunity to meet with local farmers outside the school environment. Also involved with the field day were the Warrambungles National Park Environmental Education Centre, the Sydney Royal Botanical Gardens, Hunter Local Land Services and Murrurundi and Ellerston Public Schools.

The journey continued in 2022 with another excursion, this time to Armidale to visit five regenerative farms, and again the experts were brought back to the Upper Hunter where 80 farmers attended a field day. In conjunction, Belltrees organised a tree planting day enlisting Costa Georgiadis, Upper Hunter Landcare and Wallabadah and Martindale Public Schools to help celebrate their success.

In the process the once barren paddock has been transformed. A groundswell of interest in regenerative practices from the students, staff and parents now sees chickens and sheep sharing space with an orchard and vegetable plots. Neighbouring schools have taken an active interest in this real-world model for learning about sustainability and beyond the revived school plot countless hectares in the community are benefitting from regenerative agriculture as local farmers ride the wave with the students.

Byron and Fiona Hubbard from Balarang Station in the Upper Hunter are two of those farmers.

“We have been involved with the Belltrees Public School regenerative journey for the past four years and have really enjoyed watching the whole community get behind it and learn from the experiences we have all had together …. To share this with fellow members of our farming community made it all too easy to benefit from the experience. We have all gone on to implement some of these practices into our farm and this has influenced others to try the same,” Byron says.

The Belltrees community has come together to support this journey. Fund-raising enabled participants beyond the school to attend and contribute and this has been re-paid as farmers and other experts have ensured students are maximising their educational opportunities.

“At the core of our efforts has been collaboration. Reaching out to experts in the field to support our next generation better understand the challenges and opportunities that the future holds is key to our planning. We have focused on addressing the Sustainable Development Goals through our schools Youth Environment Council. Each project we have embarked on has led our small school to forming strong relationships with individuals, organisations and collaborators who have guided, supported and mentored us through our efforts,” Shane says.

The journey to regeneration continues. In October the school will host a Paddock to Plate Day and in November will run a Journey to Regeneration field day incorporating the screening of “Rachel’s Farm”, a documentary looking at actor Rachel Ward’s own regenerative journey.

Rachel Ward may have the clout that comes from a life in film-making. Belltrees Public School has the clout of their community and an unwavering commitment to harness a far greater audience – our young people.

#YoungClimateChampions #BelltreesPublicSchool #EnvironmentalHeroes #SustainableSchools #YouthEnvironmentalCouncil #EcoWarriors #GreenGeneration #ClimateAction #FutureLeaders #EcoInnovation

 

 

by Action4Agriculture

Partnerships for the Goals with Catholic Earthcare

Schools involved in the 2022 Kreative Koalas – Design a Bright Future challenge are well advanced on their SDG journey of discovery and are in the process of designing and delivering their Community Action Project (CAP). To empower students’ further Action4Agriculture connects them with similar sustainability programs, for alone we are smart but together we are brilliant.

Let’s meet Catholic Earthcare, which delivers the sustainability message and SDGs into Catholic schools across Australia.

The Catholic Earthcare Schools program “responds to the ‘cry of the earth’ to safeguard creation and provide a voice for victims of environmental injustice.”

In 2015 Pope Francis sent an appeal to Catholics around the world through Laudato Si’, which was a papal communication calling for environmental care, prayer and action. In 2020 he created a seven year action plan to care for our common home, with goals addressing the response to the cry of the earth, a response to the cry of the poor, ecological economics, adoption of sustainable lifestyles, ecological education, ecological spirituality and community resilience and empowerment. Earthcare Schools work within this framework, alongside programs for youth, parishes and families.

“Earthcare was an initiative from the Australian Catholic Bishops in 2000 to encourage people to care for the earth,” Earthcare Schools coordinator Gwen Michener says, “Our schools’ program was introduced two years ago and now has 251 schools (both primary and secondary) involved.”

The Earthcare Schools program has a five level certification process:

  • Level 1 – affirming ecological practice
  • Level 2 – ecological dialogue creating change
  • Level 3 – ecological conversion and sustained change
  • Level 4 – deep ecological conversion creating cultural change
  • Level 5 – living an ecological vocation

“Most of our schools are at Level 1 or 2 with some at Level 3. I know there are more schools out there that are at Level 3, but they just haven’t had time [with COVID etc.] to document that,” Gwen says.

While the background and methodology may differ from Kreative Koalas, the activities and outcomes for students are familiar.

Kitchen gardens stand alongside worm farms and composting. Schools have waste free Mondays and Nude Food days and are involved with Clean up Australia Day and National Recycling Week. Environmental audits allow students to design their own action plans.

“For example we have a school whose students decided they wanted to work on biodiversity so they are making birdfeeder hotels, planting native trees and researching bees. They use iNaturalist to take photos and identify species. They participate in projects with outside organisations such as testing for water quality with Melbourne Water. They’ve been involved in the Kids Teaching Kids Environmental Conference and last term they held a sustainability expo for parents and community members. And because they are in the Dandenong Ranges they participated in the Great Australian Platypus Search using eDNA, which has given them a sense of ownership for their local environment,” Gwen says.

Earthcare Schools is a student-led national movement that harmonises with other sustainability programs across Australia and Gwen sees Kreative Koalas as an ideal fit for delivering Earthcare goals through collaboration. “We recognise work that schools have done in other sustainability programs and Kreative Koalas achieves what we are looking for. Our point of difference is having the Catholic theology embedded into our program and asking why, from a religious point of view, we should care for the environment.”

#creatingabetterworldtogether #YouthVoices #SDGs

by Action4Agriculture

Impact Reports – An opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary people you work with doing extraordinary things

At Action4Agriculture we work with some truly wonderful people. One of those is our journalist Mandy McKeesick. She is such a pleasure to brief and the outcomes always bring great joy.Mandy is the author of our Impact Reports and yesterday we made our 2021 report live. 

We celebrated the students and teachers we work with who are changing the world.

We celebrated the young people in agriculture we work with who are changing the world.

We celebrated our funding partners and our supporting partners who enable them to create a world we are all proud to be part of.

Young people may only be 20% of the population but they are 100% of the future

The research shows they are the demographic who are aware and active. They also have the capacity to bring the rest of us along with them.

Extraordinary things are happening in our schools –

Just a couple of examples – read our Impact Report to celebrate the many others

Watch this extract from an international presentation given by our founder Lynne Strong and teacher Kristen Jones

Banksia Awards finalists Hamilton Public School’s entry for the 2021 Kreative Koalas Competition

 

Visit their website here    

And the magnificent team at Penrith Valley Learning Centre – so looking forward to celebrating their win in person

2022 is the year the team at Action4Agriculture get the opportunity to deliver best practice.

And we welcome funding and supporting partners who, like us, know success requires investing in a marathon not a sprint

by Action4Agriculture

Living Sustainably (and Kreatively) with Cecilia Kemp and Wingecarribee Shire Council

Action4Agriculture’s primary school program Kreative Koalas allows us to connect with a diverse and inspirational range of environmental ambassadors, a perfect example of this is Wingecarribee Shire Council’s coordinator of Sustainability Services, Cecilia Kemp. Cecilia works with our Kreative Koala schools in the NSW Southern Highlands and is producing a suite of programs to showcase sustainability to both students and their communities.

Cecilia’s story begins in Sweden with chapters in Switzerland, Scotland and England before her eventual move to Australia in 2003, and it was the early days that influenced her to strive for a sustainable world.

“Swedish culture is strongly aligned with the natural environment and it is deeply ingrained in us and our folklore. It was normal for us to spend time out in nature but one of the things that really triggered my interest was a German teacher at my international school in Switzerland. While teaching us the German language she would always use quotes and texts from environmental sources. Her daughter worked for Greenpeace and, as an early teen, I thought that was the kind of job for me.

“I’ve always been fascinated by injustice and I think a lot of what I do is deeply rooted in that. I was the annoying kid who spoke up when she saw something wrong and said ‘we shouldn’t be doing that’ and it’s evolved into an adult passion where I like to bring issues to the public attention – things we can do better.”

With a Bachelor of Environmental Science from the University of Edinburgh and a Masters in Engineering Studies (focussed on power generation and climate change) from the University of Sydney, Cecilia’s career has seen her champion sustainability with everyone from Clean Up Australia, to state government and local councils. In 2019 she took on her current role with Wingecarribee Shire Council.

One of her initial tasks was to overhaul the annual School’s Environment Day, which at the time “involved 600 students and was bigger than Ben Hur.” Cecilia reimagined the day as one of immersive activities and adventure learning for a smaller number of students to be held in the bush at Camp Wombaroo. The first School’s Environment Day in the new format will be run in May catering for 200 students, with the second to be held later in the year allowing 200 more local students to participate.

Another initiative under Cecilia’s direction is Sustainable Us, designed as a community engagement project to address impact on the environment and actions that can be taken to mitigate climate change.

 

The project includes a series of 12 videos and will feature Hilltop Public School, who broke new ground in 2021 by using Kreative Koalas as a catalyst to report on education for sustainability.

Hilltop is a tiny community but every community in the world will be affected by climate change and these kids had already produced a video to highlight it in the context of their own space, and they’re sharing these stories with their parents and grandparents and community members. What they are doing is fantastic and we will feature them in the Sustainable Us episode about community to illustrate how we can come together and make a big difference,” Cecilia says.

Read our case study on Hilltop Public School here 

Watch the first video in the Sustainable US series here

 

Alongside the School’s Environment Day and Sustainable Us, Southern Highland’s schools, including Kreative Koalas participant Robertson Public School, benefit in other ways from Cecilia’s proactive approach.

“We send newsletters to all the schools in the Shire at the start of every term, flagging the resources that we have available to help teach a sustainable lifestyle. We offer workshops, and presentations on the local water cycle and the local impacts of climate change, run recycled art competitions and we were the first regional council to offer the Solar My School program to schools.”

“There is no silver bullet to address our environmental impact but its important people know that switching off the lights when you leave a room is just as powerful as buying a Tesla. Nobody should feel excluded based on their financial or physical ability. It’s just a case of being a bit more resourceful with what we have.”

When it comes to being resourceful Cecilia and her team are well ahead of the curve, and the benefits to our Kreative Koalas schools will be endless. We look forward to continuing and building this association for years to come and congratulate Wingecarribee Shire Council on its initiatives that educate and inspire us all to lead a better life for our planet.

#YouthVoices #CreatingABetterWorldTogether

 

 

by Action4Agriculture

Celebrating Our Partnerships – FEAST reaches 500

Today we celebrate OzHarvest FEAST reaching 500 primary schools across Australia and influencing inspiring nearly 35,000 future change-makers to waste less and care for our planet.

Celebrating strategic partnerships that:

  • encourage all Australians to value food, and the people and the places that provide it, and

  • take climate action by not wasting this most basic of human needs.

Action4Agriculture has a long-standing partnership with OzHarvest who deliver the successful FEAST program into primary schools alongside our Kreative Koalas. FEAST (Food Education and Sustainability Training) is a Year 5 and 6 curriculum-aligned education program, encouraging kids to eat healthy, waste less and become change-makers in their local community.

 

“Action4Agriculture recognises there are organisations doing great things in the food and nutrition space and through our collaboration we can help each other multiply our impact. We appreciate our key partnership with OzHarvest and congratulate them on reaching 500 schools with FEAST,” Action4Agriculture director Lynne Strong says.

Together we are supporting Australian schools to take action on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals #SDG 2 Zero Waste, #SDG 12  Responsible Production and Consumption, #SDG 13 Climate Action

The benefits of this successful collaboration are also recognised by Madison Lucas, OzHarvest FEAST National Program Manager.

“OzHarvest’s FEAST Education program values its partnership with Action4Agriculture, as they both share a common vision to bring food and environmental education into schools by providing ongoing support for teachers and delivering on a number of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. It’s great to see like-minded programs like FEAST and Kreative Koalas come together to inspire children to value food and care for our planet. Both programs understand the importance of encouraging community engagement and provide opportunities for our students to have a voice and take action to prevent food waste,” she says.

The partnership between FEAST and Kreative Koalas is exemplified by St Brigid’s Public School at Raymond Terrace who combined the programs to protect the threatened Hunter River Turtle in 2020.

As part of Kreative Koalas the students at St Brigid’s chose to focus their attention on threatened species, selecting the Hunter River Turtle as their school mascot. By participating in FEAST they planted a vegetable garden and used the cooking kit provided by OzHarvest to hold three cooking days utilising their home-grown produce. Items made were sold at the school canteen.

“All funds raised were dedicated to the Hunter River Turtle and we are thrilled to say we have made a $300 donation to the Australian Reptile Park and the work it does to protect the species,” teacher Kristen Jones says.

Kristen and St Brigid’s students travelled to the Australian Reptile Park to make their donation in person to Tim Faulkner. They were given a tour of the new turtle facilities nearing completion, and looked at a successful clutch of Manning River turtles in anticipation of how the breeding program will work.

“Tim tells us our $300 will go directly to the care and breeding program of the Hunter River Turtle. The whole Year 6 cohort is extremely proud of their achievements and our school has gone turtle mad,” Kristen says.

Read more about this exciting project here.

As Kreative Koalas rolls out for another year, Action4Agriculture welcomes the opportunity for our schools to once again partner with the OzHarvest FEAST program. Together we can promote the Sustainable Development Goals, inspire communities and create tomorrow’s change-makers today.

Sign your school up to participate in FEAST here 

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by Action4Agriculture

Keeping agriculture front of mind – COE’s Virtual Ag-Week Conference

 

Everyone, everywhere will agree COVID has been tough on education. Working and learning from home has meant the curtailment of activities beyond the online world.

Principal Kris Beazley and the team from the Centre of Excellence in Agricultural Education have risen to the challenge ensuring that agriculture stays front of mind with a virtual conference to connect young people in schools with people working in the industry.

Timed to coincide with National Ag Day on November 19 the conference for both NSW primary and secondary students will run over five days from November 15, with 22 masterclasses from a range of industry experts from IT, on-farm, science and research, and media.

“We were holding a field day in conjunction with Tafe (Richmond) and Local Land Services during ag-week but because of Covid it was postponed but we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose that focus. We had been delivering WOW Wednesday to our full-time AgSTEM students during lockdown to connect them, via Zoom, to an industry expert and this has proved a good model for a virtual ag conference,” Kris says.

The CoE panel of agricultural experts includes our Young Farming Champions. Dr Danila Marini will speak about research and technology for animal welfare, Dr Jo Newton will speak about the future of dairy farming and Emily May will give insights into peri-urban agriculture. Friend of the YFC, Kate McBride, will also speak about farming in the Murray-Darling river system.

Visit the website here to book a place for your school

“We have connected the conference to curriculum and there is clear alignment to not just agriculture but science, geography, food and fibre production, sustainability and environmental sciences. We have also included the careers component so young people have exposure to people in the industry, and on top of that it is good PL (professional learning) for teachers. It is a chance for teachers to connect their young people to the world beyond their immediate world, when they have been in lockdown for so long,” Kris says.

Sessions for the conference are filling quickly and registration is required beforehand. Ensure places for your students by visiting the website

#YouthinAg #VirtualExcursions #WoWWednesdays

by Action4Agriculture

Soroptimist International Griffith joins forces with Action4Agriculture Young Farming Champions to achieve gender equity.  

Connie Mort, Lynne Strong and Dr Dione Howard presented at Soroptimist International Griffith Dinner in July 2021

In 2019, when Dr Anika Molesworth was preparing to travel to Antarctica with a cohort of 100 other female scientists from around the world, she crowdfunded to help cover the costs of her trip.

Young Farming Champion Dr Anika Molesworth travelled to Antarctica with the support of SI Griffith 

Enter Soroptimist International Griffith, a branch of the global volunteer movement of women, who stepped in to sponsor Anika, then working in Griffith, in the NSW Riverina region.

Flash forward three years later, and when Soroptimist International Griffith (SI) wanted to take action to address climate change, they turned to Anika. She shared with SI the impact that Action for Agriculture (A4A) had played and was continuing to play in her professional and personal development, six years after joining one of its world-renowned programs, Young Farming Champions (YFC).

“I attribute my work’s impact with rural women, farming communities and international development largely to the skills I learnt through this program

A4A is championing rural young people, teaching them about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate change and bringing those people close to food and farming production, motivating and enabling them to help shape rural communities for the better. Imagine if more rural people are given a similar opportunity!”  says Anika, who now sits on the A4A Youth Leadership team.

As Soroptimist International Griffith’s member Will Mead says, that “was enough for us”. They decided to provide financial support for a leadership course run by A4A aimed at enabling equity for emerging female leaders, as part of their global vision on supporting rural women, gender equity and women’s mentorship. The workshop was run in October 2020.

At a dinner held in Griffith on July 21, SI told its members and community why “A4A is an organisation whose ideals and programs align with those of Soroptimist International perfectly as our objectives are all based on the UN’s SDGs”.

The dinner, held at the Exies Club in Griffith, was a chance for SI to meet A4A leaders including founder and national program director Lynne Strong, Dr Dione Howard, Connie Mort, Veronika Vicic and Dylan Male. All shared with Soroptimist International Griffith their own stories and A4A’s highly revered programs for primary and secondary schools.

Will Mead says that having A4A visit Griffith to share their experiences was “a bit special”, local media reported.

“We wanted our members and our community to meet some of these amazing people,” she says.

She told the event that Soroptimist International Griffith was impressed by A4A’s school programs Kreative Koalas and the Archibull Prize because they are “really pushing for better responses to climate change and achieving gender equality”, The Area News reported. 

“Agriculture is such a male-dominated field and yet most of PYiA’s YFC are women,” said Will, who described it as a “wonderful organisation”.

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The stunning table decorations at the SI Griffith Dinner

The A4A leadership course aimed at enabling equity for upcoming women leaders was part of a series of workshops rolled out at the end of last year. Alongside A4A’s fabulous national facilitators Kris Beazley, Jenni Metcalfe, Les Robinson and Josh Farr, we were delighted to add internationally acclaimed Kwame Christian to our repertoire.

Kwame is the director of the American Negotiation Institute, a practising business lawyer, and host of the world’s most popular negotiation podcast Negotiate Anything (downloaded over 1.5 million times). He’s also author of the Amazon best-seller Finding Confidence in Conflict, a negotiation and conflict resolution professor at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law and regular Forbes magazine contributor. In addition, Kwame is a LinkedIn trainer, a regular contributor to Forbes magazine and a popular public speaker with his 2017 TEDx talk being named the most popular talk on the topic of conflict.

A4A is very grateful for Soroptimist International Griffith’s support.

 

 

by Action4Agriculture

Tomorrow’s workers to be most sought after thanks to collaboration between Action for Agriculture and top leadership trainers Dale Carnegie

Secondary school students across Australia will be equipped for the future workforce with transferrable skills through an exciting new partnership between Action for Agriculture ( formerly Picture Yourself in Agriculture ) and one of the world’s most foremost leadership training providers.

Dale Carnegie will generously provide the winner of the annual Archibull Prize, an Action for Agriculture  flagship program, with a complimentary workshop to gear them up for life beyond the classroom with the skills most valued by employers and ensure that they can adapt to a wide variety of careers.

“Young Australians have experienced drought, flood, fire and now COVID19, but they are also in a prime position to define their futures. 

“This collaboration with Dale Carnegie will ensure that these youth, the ones who will be most affected by this uncertainty, are given the skills that are now the most sought after in these changing and challenging times.” says Lynne Strong, founder and national program director of Action for Agriculture.

 

Jessica Gopalan, marketing manager at Dale Carnegie, says that The Archibull Prize encourages students to build professional networks, expanding their understanding of the world as they learn how those in a vast array of fields contribute towards a sustainable future.

“The partnership between Action for Agriculture and Dale Carnegie will help ensure that students have the transferable skills that will equip them for tomorrow’s workforce

The sheer volume of talent and potential in these youth is outstanding, and we’re honoured to be working alongside Action for Agriculture in their commitment to driving positive change for both the individuals and the ideas that they champion.” she says.

The 90-minute workshop offered by Dale Carnegie, which offer professional training and coaching with their global headquarters based in New York and their Australian office in Sydney, will be offered either online or physically from 2021 onwards.

Dale Carnegie look forward to building a longer term partnership to support Action for Agriculture and its partners in accessing additional training and development opportunities, says Jessica.

Lynne says that the voices of young people are not heard prominently enough in society and in the agricultural sector, even though they have the most to gain and lose.

“The Archibull Prize seeks to enable and empower students to work together to identify and solve problems and take actions that will help them build a better world.

The Archibull Prize’s 21st century learning design empowers teachers to help students master traditional skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic, alongside capability skills, like creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration, most valued by employers.” she says.”

The Archibull Prize is an internationally recognised secondary schools program designed to engage students with agriculture and sustainability by challenging them to research a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, design and deliver a community action program and to present their findings in multi-media and artistically on a life-sized fibreglass cow.

Last year’s prize went ahead in a modified format, with students and teachers even rising to the occasion and excelling under challenging conditions during the global pandemic.

In recognition of their efforts the first school to benefit from this partnership will be 2020 Grand Champion School  Penrith Valley School

The Archibull Prize, along with Kreative Koalas and Young Farming Champions, Action for Agriculture’s other world-class flagship programs, aim to showcase the diversity of careers and pathway opportunities in the agriculture sector.

We thank all our partners who are investing in the future by empowering young Australians to solve tomorrow’s problems today

 

 

 

 

 

by Action4Agriculture

Building agricultural literacy and supporting our young people to be ready for the jobs of the future

This experience has been profound for our students. It has facilitated critical thinking, in-depth discussions and provided a platform for our students to develop and refine their thoughts and thinking on issues affecting society today. The Hackathon generated ideas and language our students rarely use to express themselves. The clarity and conviction in their arguments was impressive. The entire process has stirred their creative juices and fostered dedication to finish both the Koala and the Archibull to a very high standard. They have spent all their spare time collaborating and working hard to ensure the projects are ready for submission. The sense of pride in their work is wonderful to see. I highly recommend the opportunity to participate in The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas.

Claudia Munday Teacher Penrith Valley LC

At Picture You in Agriculture we are committed to adding value to everyone we serve.

We support agriculture by future proofing the sector through

  • Building agricultural literacy
  • Inspiring pride in the contribution of farmers and rural and regional communities to Australia’s economic wellbeing, our social fabric and the the sector’s commitment to achieving climate positive agriculture
  • Succession planning. Identifying and developing emerging leaders in the sector and leveraging their capacity as role models to attract young people into agriculture

Agricultural literacy revolves around the ability to think critically and make value judgments about the impact of agriculture as an economic and environmental activity and the concurrent societal and political pressures that result from those judgments. An agriculturally literate person should be able to analyse and evaluate “trade-offs” to individuals and to society resulting from agricultural enterprises. The nature of the decisions and value judgments drive the agricultural content. Understanding of agriculture is demonstrated by the ability to enter into conversations about and make decisions in response to choices facing society. Source 


Learn more about the sustainability circle here 

We support the teachers we work with to empower their students to be critical and creative thinkers who are life long learners working together to be engaged and active participants in the communities they live, work and play in

As part of Picture You in Agriculture’s support of schools undertaking The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas in 2020, a series of workshops was rolled out in October for teachers and students.

First cab off the rank was the wonderful Kris Beazley, principal at the Centre of Excellence in Agricultural Education -Richmond Agricultural College, who held one day hack-a-thons in design thinking and imagineering.

“The aim of the hack-a-thon was to draw together the students’ prior learnings and understandings about the project parameters, their area of research, understanding of effective communication and project planning. Students developed ideas and concepts through a process of imagineering, clustering, consideration and feedback, and then these tested ideas formed a milestone map and resourcing and task allocation plan for their projects,” Kris says.

Four teams participated in the hack-a-thon, three involved with The Archibull Prize and one with Kreative Koalas. Setting the project tone for their Archies were Stage 4 students from Nepean Creative and Performing Arts who are studying sustainable fashion, Stage 4 students from Granville Boys who are studying water management in the Sydney catchment and Stage 4 and 5 students from the Penrith Valley Learning Centre who are studying land use challenges of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. Kreative Koala participants were the Stage 3 students from the Penrith Valley Learning Centre who are supporting koalas in the rural fringes of north-west Sydney.

“Our students embarked on an intense day of imagineering and prototyping that was tailored to our Archibull theme, zero textiles waste. Design thinking principles united with structured negotiations, constructive feedback and testing group ideas, and project parameters were rigorously explored, discussed and revisited. The result was a synthesised group production target and achievable project goals. We thank the Archibull Hackathon team for their passion, innovation and interest in the development of our project and our minds.”

Mrs Rowston, Nepean Creative and Performing Arts

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And what does their Archie look like

 

Students enjoyed the opportunity to contribute to their projects and to problem solve as part of a group. When asked what were three things they learned during the day, their responses included:

  • “collaboration – merging ideas – be willing to change and compromise”

  • “how to communicate effectively – listen/respect and use others ideas – easily collaborate”

  • “communication – teamwork – realistic ideas”

Kris believes the hack-a-thons developed a sense of collective commitment to the Archibull and Kreative Koalas projects.

“It is an intense day but also gives every student in the group a voice and the agency to act.”

Meet Penrith Valley Learning Centre’s Archie

 

A great outcome for agriculture supporting our young people to be ready for the jobs of the future

by Action4Agriculture

Partnerships for Gender Equity

At Picture You in Agriculture we are big believers in

“Alone you are smart. Together we are brilliant”

so when Elizabeth Hernandez, Head of External Affairs and Sustainability, Asia Pacific for Corteva reached out and invited us to be a partner with  GrowHer we said YES, YES, YES

And what a perfect example GrowHer is of people and organisations coming together to take Collective Action for Collective Impact

Officially launched on  October 14, we are super proud to have some of our YFC and Corteva emerging leaders profiled with this exciting global initiative.

GrowHer is an online platform designed to inspire, inform and include women in agriculture in the Asia Pacific region.

Growing the Next Stories – This global webseries brings together, in five episodes, testimonials from women from seven countries, including Brazil, the United States, France, Poland, Italy, Kenya, and Indonesia. In each chapter they tell about their relationship to rural production, the difficulties and challenges they face.

It is the brainchild of four agripreneurs and ecosystem players, whose respective organisations have formed the GrowHer steering committee. These influential women are Erin Sweeney from Grow Asia, Elizabeth Hernandez, from Corteva Agriscience Asia Pacific, Jade Dyson, from WOMAG, and Cherrie D. Atilano, CEO of AGREA in the Philippines.

GrowHer’s online launch featured all four women who spoke about their desire to empower women in agriculture. “The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) estimates that if women had the same access to ag inputs, to mechanization, water, finance, land ownership, all of those things that men in agriculture have, they would produce 20-30% more food, and that’s enough to be able to take 150 million out of poverty,” Elizabeth said.

Three other women agripreneurs were also invited to speak at the launch. They were Phyu Hninn Nyein, head of operations for Proximity Designs in Myanmar, Yvonne Foong, founder of Chektec from Singapore, and our very own Lynne Strong.

See Lynne’s GrowHer profile here, read about PYiA’s Corteva emerging leaders here and find out more about females kicking big goals in agriculture on the GrowHer website.

In conjunction with the launch Lynne and three Young Farming Champions – Dione Howard, Emma Ayliffe and Anika Molesworth – sat down for a chat with Elizabeth Hernandez at a WOMAG virtual coffee morning. WOMAG is an organization currently based out of Singapore that connects and develops women across the entire agri-ecosystem with the goal of creating a future pool of leaders.

At PYiA we believe in the enormous power of these partnerships .

“We are thrilled they have identified the Young Farming Champions as a model they’d like to roll out in Asia and we are proud to join this coalition of strong voices. We know that alone we are smart but together we are brilliant, and we look forward to this concept of working together, and amplifying each other’s voices, becoming common practice around the world,” Lynne said.


#CollectiveImpact #CollectiveAction #GenderEquity #SDG5