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OzGREEN

Youth leading change to make a difference

Stockland Balgowlah recently partnered with OzGREEN, a not-for-profit organisation which educates, engages and empowers young people to tackle critical environmental sustainability challenges to become leaders of positive social change. Founded in 1992,  OzGreen run a number of programs which are transferable, scalable and facilitate long term engagement.

We?re pleased to be supporting two of their latest environmental awareness programs: Planet Savers and YOUth LEADing Australia. As part of these programs, we?ll be reaching out to local schools to involve and inspire students to develop their unique set of initiatives to reduce their own carbon footprint.

Planet Savers

The Planet Savers program involves a series of workshops and follow up support from OzGREEN. Monday, 13 September kicked off the start of the OzGREEN PlanetSavers workshops, named Ambassadors Day.  

Elected students from Manly West Primary School, Balgowlah Boys and Manly Selective Campus, got the chance to meet one another and be introduced to the PlanetSavers program.The program raised awareness and provoked discussion regarding the many factors effecting the sustainability of our planet Earth. Students were inspired to make changes to their own lifestyles to reduce their ecological footprints.

The ambassadors then worked alongside OzGREEN to educate their fellow classmates, in workshops held at their schools.  In these 3 hour workshops the students generated ideas for actions they undertake at their school and in their own lives to live sustainably.

To encourage the wider community to implement their own set of sustainable practices, OzGREEN and the Ambassadors facilitated a teachers and parents workshop for each of their schools.The students showed great leadership skills in facilitating the workshops, particularly in front of their peers, teachers and the community.OzGREEN will now support the local schools to measure the impact and outcomes of their involvement in PlanetSavers. In November youth from across the local region will participate in OzGREEN?s International Congress YOUth LEADing Australia.

In November, the ambassadors from each participating school came together for a special morning tea to share their experiences and action plans following on from the PlanetSavers program. The morning tea was attended by students and parents from each participating school. Special guest, Mayor Jean Hay, congratulated the students on their efforts and action plans to make their school communities more sustainable. Here?s what the students said: ·         

Manly West has a vegie garden, compost bin and water tanks.  The school is also getting a native bee hive and chooks.

Manly Selective students have set up an environmental committee.  Plans include a plastic water bottle ban and a mobile phone collection.       

Balgowlah Boys Campus will hold an environmental day with a sausage sizzle and a clean-up day with Stella Maris College.

We will be checking in with schools in a few months to measure the impact and outcomes of these innovative initiatives.

YOUth LEADing

The YOUth LEADing Australia program provides young students (15+ years)  with the opportunity to develop wider community environmental initiatives for the community, which then feeds into the Local Youth Sustainability in Action Congresses.

The YOUth LEADing Australia congress took place on 23-25 November. This national youth climate congress ran simultaneously in 12 locations around Australia, with the North Sydney Region held at Oxford Falls. Together they learnt about sustainability challenges such as climate change, food, energy and water; they met with local sustainability champions; and they shared success stories, challenges, actions and inspiration with each other through digital media and social networking technology.

Building a Community Garden

The Cancer Council NSW is partnering with local residents to develop a Balgowlah Community Garden at 100 Griffith Street, Balgowlah. A community garden is a place where people come together with a common purpose, meet others in the local area and spend time out in the community in which they live. On top of these social benefits, community gardening encourages people to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables and become more active, and maintaining a healthy body weight can help people reduce their risk of some cancers, along with a number of other chronic diseases.  

The community garden is run by a group of volunteers from the local community. With only 1 in 10 residents in Sydney's northern suburbs getting the recommended 5 serves of vegetables into their diets everyday, the community garden will be a an opportunity for the local community to become more aware of their diet and be an example of how easy, fun and affordable healthy living can be.   

After a very wet October, the Balgowlah Community Garden group finally had a rain free Saturday and were able to hold their first working bee on the 13th of November. The group were busy mowing the lawn, weeding, and laying brick beds for the vegetable plots. They have since had 2 more working bees and will soon have some thriving veggies to share amongst themselves. The group are currently looking to recruit new committee members with gardening experience to help guide the planting phase of the garden over the summer.

For any enquiries or to express your interest in joining the committee please contact the Memberships Secretary at balgowlahcommunitygarden@gmail.com.

A $1 bag can carry a lot of karma

Stockland's Environmentally Friendly Bags help reduce the 6.9 billion plastic bags used by Australians every year. Our Stockland Environmentally Friendly Bags are available from Centre Management and only cost $1. Not using them costs the earth.