Banksia Eco-Warriors Project

Bicycle maintenance workshops

2010-07-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Eco Warriors bloggers,

It's been a while since our last post but hopefully you all have been following our Environmentality blog, which in general is updated weekly.

But while Environmentality is a very important part of the Banksia Eco Warriors Program, it is not the only thing that keeps us busy.

For the last 6 weeks or so, in partnership with the Northern Transport Links Project led by Link Community Transport, we have been hosting fortnightly Bicycle Maintenance Workshops to support local residents who want to learn how to maintain a bicycle. The workshops have been held every second Saturday at Banksia Gardens and this Saturday (17th July) we have the last one coming up.

The workshops have been a great success with an average of 10 people turning up to the different sessions that have covered topics such as "Wheels and Tyres", "Brakes" or "Safety and Equipment".

It is important to mention that this would not have been possible without the help from Alex, co-owner of The Bike Shed in Craigieburn. Alex volunteered his time to facilitate the sessions.

Apart from being a valuable initiative in itself, it looks like this initiative will lead to an ongoing bicycle repair & recycle program, but we will keep you posted.

See you soon!

Environmentality on 98.9 North West FM

2010-04-06T06:10:00.001-07:00

Dear Eco Warriors bloggers,

On the 23rd of March 2010 we started our radio program called Environmentality. The show airs on a fantastic local radio station and we are putting it together with the help of a small (but growing) group of volunteers. We are lucky to have the assistance of our big sister CERES (must be a sister since she was a goddess right?) in the recruitment of these volunteers, who need to be quite talented.

You can follow the progress of the radio show on its stand alone blog, http://www.environmentality989.blogspot.com .

And remember, make your mentality... Environmentality!

See you soon!

Worcester Polytechnic Institute Students working on Edu-Eco Link

2010-03-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

Dear Eco Warriors bloggers,

For the last weeks or even months our blog has been dominated by the community garden, so in the next day or so I am planning to share a couple of stories related to some other programs.

The four people you see above are Jim, Ashley, Trevor and Liz. They are American students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), one of the oldest engineering faculties in the USA. WPI was kind enough to send them to Banksia Gardens Community Centre as part of the University's innovative Global Perspective Program.

From January to March, they worked at Banksia Gardens Community Centre helping us to develop our Edu-Eco Link Program, an environmental education program for schools in the Hume area. Prior to their arrival, they spent two months doing background research and preparing a preliminary report.

The contribution the students made to the Edu-Eco Link program was phenomenal and involved extensive consultation with young people and educators, careful research and consideration of the program principles and design of the sessions included in it. In addition to this, they truly became part of the team during their time here and they provided enormous help with several programs and activities (see pictures). As a result of all this, we are now starting some conversations with different organisations to see how this program can actually become a reality.

So a big thank you to Ashley, Elizabeth, Jim and Trevor!!

End of summer

2010-03-10T21:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Eco Warriors bloggers,

For the last three months we have been busy watering, harvesting and eating the fantastic vegetables from our garden, including silver beat, lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions, parsnip, basil, cauliflower, cabbage, chili, zucchini, squash, etc.

It is now time to start planting some winter produce, and I thought it was time to share a couple of stories and pictures with you.

One very positive one is that due to the success of the garden, we decided to install 4 more garden beds to be used by a Young Women's Group who are based at Roxburgh Park.

Since we were very happy with the garden beds we installed in the first place, we contacted the same company, Kiwi Collars, to order some more. A few emails down the track they let us know that they were impressed by the use we had made of their product, and they decided to "sponsor" our garden by heavily discounting the new garden beds we ordered.

Here is a picture of our dedicated and lovely volunteers Heidi and Kylie, with some produce that was harvested today.

Community garden progress

2009-12-10T22:02:00.001-08:00

Dear bloggers,

We have kept busy in the last few weeks and I felt it was time to share the fantastic fruits of the work that has been carried out by our community garden volunteers. I want to thank particularly the ones who have been involved in the very intense last few weeks: Heidi, Kevin, Puspa, Sonny, Abshir and Yakup. The garden has started producing a sizable amount of silver beat and lettuce which has been shared with the volunteers and many public housing residents, as a tangible (and edible) way to promote the garden (better than a leaflet, I'd say :)).

In addition to this, you will see a beautiful mural that has been put together by a crew from Workforce Plus, skilfully led by Michael. Here are some pictures to illustrate all this, as you can see they have been taken with a bit of a festive spirit, as the end of the year approaches. Thanks to Jo for modeling! :)

Community garden: gaining serious momentum

2009-09-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Banksia Eco Warriors bloggers,

It's been a couple of months again so I decided an update on the community garden was well overdue! What started as a tiny strip of cultivated land has become a significant project now and more importantly, the group of dedicated community garden volunteers keeps growing and growing!

Over the last few weeks we have been meeting at least every fortnight to plan the work for the next few months and as soon as we received all the seeds we ordered, we organised a gathering to start doing some serious planting. The conditions were pretty chilly out there but Heidi, George, Frank, Chan, Stan, Kevin and Abshir did a fantastic job. Apart from some pictures of our fantastic volunteers, I am also including a diagram of our garden and a list of all that has been planted so far.

Garden beds:

1. Nothing yet
2. Nothing yet
3. Nothing yet
4. Cauliflowers
5. Climbing beans
6. Nothing yet
7. Fenugreeks, Red Cabbages
8. Parsnips, chamomile
9. Beetroot
9. Nothing yet
10. Kidney beans, garlic chives
11. Nothing yet
12. Aloe Vera, red onions
13. Just finished preparation works
14. Starting from top to bottom: herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary, parsley, coriander), several types of lettuce, silver beat, beetroot, chilli, cabbage, broccoli.

In addition to this, we are working with a group of people from Workforce Plus who are designing a mural for one of the walls. Once this mural is complete they will plant a range of edible indigenous plants and several fruit trees along the fence.

We will keep you posted!

Community garden 95% there!

2009-07-09T23:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Banksia Eco Warriors Bloggers,

After a few weeks we are back with some amazing news, the community gardens is ready to go! We now have twelve brand new raised garden beds and we have maintained the initial strip with which we started, which is now looking great thanks to our volunteer Heidi.

The timing could not be better as all the garden beds were installed just in time for the young people participating in our School Holiday Program to decorate them as part of the Art Day.

I think this post does not need any more words, perhaps just a few to thank Jason Summers from Hume City Council and the crew from Workforce Plus who have made all this possible. The artwork was skillfully directed by Alex Prado from the Centre for Multicultural Youth. So here are the pictures!

Stop Motion Animation Workshops - green stories (III)

2009-04-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

And last but not least, here is The Big Drought!

As you can see the drought seems to have captured the imagination of the young participants, I love the mixture of serious messages with some cheeky sense of humour!

It would be great if the bloggers could vote on the best animation using the poll on the right. I did promise some prizes for the best story and I have not been able to pick a winner by myself...

Stop Motion Animation Workshops - green stories (II)

2009-04-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

Here is the story about Super Sam the Recycling Man!

Stop Motion Animation Workshops - green stories (I)

2009-04-19T23:23:00.001-07:00

Dear Eco Warrior bloggers,

Today I want to show you something that I am particularly proud of.

Every term Banksia Gardens Community Centre delivers Stop Motion Animation Workshops for young people with some funding from Hume City Council.

For four weeks participants (aged 8-16) learn some basic techniques and go on to developing their own stories. This time we asked them to produce stories with an environmental theme.

With the great help of the facililator, Alex Machin (terrific guy!), last term's group has managed to produce three incredible movies that I will post over the next couple of days. Well done!

Banksia Eco Warriors Showerhead Exchange Program

2009-03-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Eco Warrior bloggers,

We come to you with some refreshing news (pun inteded)!

Banksia Gardens Community Centre, in partnership with Yarra Valley Water, and with support from Hume City Council, is starting a Showerhead Exchange Program with an interesting twist.

Rather than waiting for people to come to us with their old showerheads, we have decided to trial the idea of going to people's houses to try and organise the exchange on the spot. We believe that this will allow us to reach many more households and to make a valuable personal connection that will be used for other programs under the Eco Warriors Project.

The process of getting the program organised has been extremely interesting, particularly given the disparity in the size of the organisations involved.

The new showerheads will be arriving to Banksia next Monday, we can't wait!

See you soon!

Interesting video - story of stuff

2009-02-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

Dear Eco Warrior bloggers,

After a long absence (a mixture of laziness and being quite busy really), I have decided to start breathing some life into this blog. We will do it slowly so I won't make any promises that we can't keep.

The picture that you see is the first stage of our community garden project, which is not the topic of this post, however you really can't have a blog article without a picture...

Marcia, one of our star volunteers, sent me the link to an interesting website and we thought it would be great to put it up and see what you think.
The Story of Stuff is a website that critically explores our production and consumption patterns. They have a very engaging 20 minute video, so what are you waiting for? Watch it and remember, comments are more than welcome!

See you soon!

Main features of the Banksia Eco Warriors Project

2008-06-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

As you can see we are getting closer to our aspirational goal of one post per week. This is mainly as a result to the great contributions by friends of the project. So if you think you could contribute with a post, please contact me.

This week we have two very important guests talking about the main features of the project, but it is better if you see it for yourselves (as you can see my video-editing skills can only improve from now!)

See you next week, most probably it will be the second post on Lifecycle Assessment.

Cheers,

Jaime

Permaculture

2008-05-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

Hi my name is Marcia and I am a friend of the Banksia Eco Warriors Project. I hope you like this entry about permaculture. If you like it I will be writing more :)

Permaculture was born in 1970 as a result of Bill Mollison’s careful observation of nature. The name originated by merging the words “Permanent” and “Culture", but is much more than that, in truth it is a search for peace, harmony and an abundant life. One of the principles of permaculture is to distribute natural resources equitably without prejudice to the environment.

In permaculture we adopt a conscious planning to make possible, among other things, the use of land without waste or pollution, the restoration of degraded landscapes and minimum energy consumption. In short, we must feed the natural cycles so they remain productive.

To illustrate this, we can think about water, for example. In traditional systems we take the water from dams, build a complex system of cleaning and distribution of water to our homes, use clean water to cook, to drink, to take a shower, wash the clothes and dishes, to flush and after that, put all that dirty water together and send to a station for sewage treatment. We put asphalt on our streets and make our backyards waterproof, which prevents the water from going to the earth to supply the groundwater sources when it rains. That same groundwater feeds the rivers from which we take our water....so in summary, we have broken the water's cycle in many parts.

To permaculture, the ideal is that we use the water from our area, for instance collecting rain water , reuse water from our house to the garden and specially think better about our lifestyle.

The same happens with our food, we can produce a part of our food in our own homes, we can buy directly from the producers, eat fruits and vegetables from season and produced in a system which doesn't use the monoculture and without agrochemicals. If we utilize monoculture systems for our agriculture, this will never be sustainable because the diversity promotes the balance, different vegetables need different substances from the soil and they have interactions between their which support for resist to plagues.

In many initiatives we use permaculture even if we have never heard that word, if you have a vegetable garden in you home or school, this is permaculture! If you use your organic rubbish in your garden, this is permaculture! If you re-use you dishwasher’s water to water your garden, this is permaculture!

Permaculture is when you help the nature cycles to be alive and healthy in order to provide a healthy and happy life for everyone.

Lifecycle Assessment (1)

2008-05-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

After a long absence from our blog, we are back with this little piece on lifecycle assessment that Nadisha Prelis, a good friend of the Banksia Eco Warriors project, has prepared for us. I am trying to engage a few regular contributors to make sure we post something every week. If you are interested in posting on this blog, please let me know!

With so much being said about climate change you, like millions of people out there, may want to help make a positive change. One way of doing this is through the choices you make as a consumer. Let’s assume you are already committed to doing your best to make sure your environmental impact on the planet is as small as it can be. As part of that commitment you may have made many choices as a consumer. For example perhaps you weighed the environmental impacts of choosing:

- A laptop versus a desktop computer.

- A gas boosted solar hot water system versus a normal gas hot water system to replace an existing electric one.

- Cloth nappies versus disposable nappies.

- A hybrid car versus an ordinary, energy efficient car.

- A compact fluorescent light versus an incandescent light.

On the face of it, the environmentally responsible choice would be simple. Of course a compact fluorescent light is going to be better for the environment! Well is it? Did you know that Compact Fluorescent Lamps contain small amounts of mercury that can contribute to air and water pollution if released in landfills and waste incinerators? Does it start to get tricky? If we look at a product in the context of its entire life, how can we know for sure whether those “green” products are as green as we think? It would seem that there are other less obvious or immediate impacts that need to be considered than those that happen when we use a product.

Let’s look at a quick example. There has been a lot of talk about hybrid cars. Of course, they are less polluting and therefore a far better transportation choice. Buts lets take our beautiful hybrid car out of its usual where its drives proudly, if not a bit smugly by a gas guzzling four wheel drive. What about how it was made and what it took to make it? What happens after it goes to the scrap heap? Can these upstream and downstream stages of the car’s life produce more emissions than what we will be saving over its useful life? Now it gets pretty complicated doesn’t it?

This is where Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) comes in handy. Lifecycle assessment is a way of considering the environmental impacts throughout the entire life of a product. This means looking at a range of impacts when raw materials are extracted, when the product is manufactured, transported to markets, used , re-used, recycled, and disposed of. It may sound like a lot of work, and indeed it is, but this whole of life approach allows a holistic and therefore fairer assessment of the true environmental impact of a product.

But how is this done? What I suggest is that we stop here for now and that in the next entry we try to see what would be involved in comparing two alternatives using lifecycle assessment. For me one the less obvious choices would be between cloth and disposable nappies, so we might give that a try!

Environmental information resource list

2008-03-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Just a quick post to let you all know that we have just published a new document on Banksia's website. It is basically a compilation of links to different sources of environmental information, and you can access it by clicking here.

Just to mention a couple of items in the list, there is a very interesting Greenhouse Gas Emissions flow chart produced by the World Resources Institute (see image below), and extremely valuable information about the links between social and environmental justice can be found on the Transnational Institute website, of which my beloved Susan George is a fellow.

See you soon!

Update and miscellaneous

2008-03-14T00:29:00.000-07:00

(Left: biomimicry: Japan's 500 Series Shinkansen bullet train is modeled after a kingfisher's beak. Getty Images)

I thought I would give everyone an update since it has been a while (2 weeks and 2 days) since our last post. We want to post at least weekly but incorporating it into the weekly routine will take some adjustment.

Since the last post a few things have happened:

We had our meeting (see last post), which went very well. It was great to have representatives from three state government departments and the local council looking at the project strategically.
One of the most important outcomes was that our architects (FMSA Architects) have agreed to produce a Vision Document that will greatly assist us seeking additional resources for the project.
Gina and I have been working on broadening the support for the project in a number of ways. For instance, in two weeks we will be meeting with our local federal MP, Maria Vamvakinou.
I am back at Uni after the summer break and will be able to use the Eco Warriors project for my main assignment in the course Sustainable Energy Systems and Design, in which I will be looking at the energy efficiency and renewable energy generation sides of the project.
Next Tuesday we are meeting with representatives from DSE to start the process of signing the Funding Agreement and to jointly analyse the Project Milestones that will inform the agreement.
I have been reading the Garnaut Review and I am working on a small review on the Review. Not quite there yet, by the time I finish the may publish the final report!

Finally, just some food for thought about the picture I used for this post. This week we learned a bit about biomimicry in the Masters. Biomimicry could be roughly described as a sustainability strategy that looks at incorporating some of nature's design features into human technology.

You can find out more about it by following the following links:

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2008/id20080211_074559.htm
http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/

What could we learn from the Banksia, I wonder?

Monday's meeting

2008-02-27T17:13:00.001-08:00

This morning I asked our Manager, Gina Dougall, to tell you all about a very important meeting that is taking place on Monday. So here is what she said without needing to rehearse or prepare, she is such a media animal!

Our next post will analyse the Interim Report released by the Garnaut Climate Change Review, so come back soon to check it out!

Information Session at Sustainability Victoria

2008-02-17T20:44:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday my manager Gina and I attended an information session organised by Sustainability Victoria (www.sustainability.vic.gov.au) and DSE (www.dse.vic.gov.au) for all the successful EcoLiving Centres.

Before the day Gina and I were very excited even and bit anxious about making a good impression, so when we got to the workshop we had already spent quite a lot of time developing our workplan and milestones.

In the end none of that work was really necessary as the workshop turned out to be more about getting to know all the stakeholders involved in the Grants initiative, including all the other successful projects. The presentation about all the different projects was a great display of diversity of organisations and approaches in environmental practice, and it was great to see that other neighbourhood houses (North East NH Network) have been successful with their submission as well.

We also learned a great deal about the great programs carried out by Sustainability Victoria and started to discuss ways in which our centres can convey information about those programs.

One of the best outcomes of the day was the decision to create a network of EcoLiving Centres in Victoria, which will facilitate the flow of communication and the collaboration between the different projects.

We also had a bit of time to visit the Sustainability Victoria building, which has a six star environmental rating.

My feeling is that our project is slowly gaining momentum and that after the workshop we know all the players in the game, so it is time to start working really hard!

So what is this Eco Warriors project all about?

2008-01-29T21:23:00.000-08:00

Banksia Gardens Community Centre is a neighbourhood house located in the public housing estate of Broadmeadows, in the North of Melbourne, Australia.

As it can be seen in the previous post we have recently received funding to set up an Eco-Living Demonstration Centre, which is quite a fancy name for a sort of environmental education centre.

But one of the things that make this project exciting is our commitment to combine this new environmental focus with our community development practice, as we believe that communities experiencing disadvantage should not be excluded from the "Sustainability Revolution". Thus, the aim of the project is to make substantial sustainable modifications to the building and to our operations and to use these as a demonstration for the community at large.

So during the first stage of this project, visitors to this blog should be able to keep track of the changes made to the building and to share with us the lessons that we learn as we make this project become a reality.

Obviously your feedback is welcome and it is one of the reasons why we have set up this blog. We invite you to share this journey with us. We are convinced that it will be a worthwhile one, even though we are also sure that we will find many challenges ahead.

Banksia Eco-Warriors: Community Empowerment for a Green Tomorrow

2008-01-29T01:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Banksia Gardens Community Centre!

This blog has been created for people to be able to track the development of the Banksia Eco-Warriors Project.

It seems logical that the first post is dedicated to direct viewers to the official website of the Eco Living Centre Grants initiative, this way people can understand where the money will come from :). So here it is:

http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/DSE/nrence.nsf/fid/A901CE52397F8B00CA2573D4001F1D33