An Environmental Watershed

The inspiration that we can take from our young Redlands citizens is unlimited.

By request from a teacher at Saint Anthonys Primary School in 2005, I found myself engaged in deep discussion with Grade Two students over the state of the drought in South East Qld, in particular what we should be doing to conserve water.  These young people were like mini sponges repeating back with passion on how important it was to turn the tap off while brushing their teeth. 

Weeks later, I bumped into an old school mate, who could not wait to pull me aside and give me an ear full of what a right pain I had created for her.  Puzzled, I racked my brain as to what I could have possibly done as I had not seen her for years.  As the conversation progressed, it seemed her daughter was part of that Grade Two class and had become what she termed as the household “water nazi”. 

This was the birth of the realization for me that to make a real difference to our future here in Redlands and beyond, we needed to engage young people with whatever tools were available to us in issues of their future, the environment and our community. 

This was my Watershed.  The outcome was young people living and breathing the solutions to our issues, the process was designed to take them on a journey that meant something to them and for them to communicate it to the rest of the population.  Using the tools and networks I had gathered, with assistance of support of the festival I had been part of, the creative friends (eg Alison Rogers - Vocal Manoeuvres) I had the good fortune of knowing, the staff at Indigiscapes and their great educational record, our committed local schools, my connections to various government funding and business sponsorship, I set about utilizing Redland’s most valuable assets – our children, to build a stronger connection with our natural assets – our environment.

Young people connect with issues through different mediums and so we created school projects that allowed students to adopt a local creek and take an interest in their catchment, we created partnerships with amazing musicians and artists who would connect other young people to the environment through mediums such as literature, music, dance, film and theatre.  This would then become the basis of a performance that would share that message with the rest of our City.

With the project in place, I organized visits to local school, dragging professional artists to the more remote parts of the City such as Russell Island, and Dunwich – to ensure as many young people as possible could be involved.

Students gave up school holidays to workshop and perform with amazing artists with the intention of giving Redlands something they had never seen before.

As the first weekend of Spring approached, still suffering the SEQ drought, the Redland Spring Festival kicked into gear and as is often the case, the skies opened up and it began to rain and rain and rain.  Sweet irony really from where the journey began.  As people arrived, all dressed up, fighting the mud in their high heeled shoes and looking for dry ground, the performance proceeded and was spectacular in content and in impact.

This communication strategy for the environment required little more than hard work in creating partnerships with community groups, our indigenous elders, schools, artists, government bodies, such as Festivals Australia, Queensland Events, Council’s Indigiscapes,  private enterprise and an amazing group of our young Redlanders.  It came at no extra cost to Council except some gravel to soak up the soggy showground fields.

  

The lesson was not just the message that was sent out under that muddy, soggy drenched marquee.  It was the strength of a strategy that demonstrated how critical our young people were in sending that message and their undervalued role in being able to communicate and educate us all on really important issues.  It also proved the importance of partnerships with all sectors to work with our youth to create solutions that become part of their future.

I demonstrated a different way of communicating our environmental issues but with a focus always on the final performance, the final outcome.  The process was one that the young people designed and implemented so that the outcome was relevant to them.  If we want 21^st century solutions then these are the people we need to value and keep engaged as part of our Redlands community.

This event was one of my proudest community moments, not because we survived the incredibly bad weather or that we achieved the impact of selling an important message, or the fact it was an amazing musical production of a quality that had never been experienced in Redlands before that time.  I was most proud of the fact that our own Redlands young people, when given the opportunity, are our best assets and are capable of achieving incredible outcomes.