Highways and Byways is so grateful to all of you for your continuing support!
We are pleased to announce the successful grant applicants to our 2024 Small Grants Program, Valuing Community Connections in an Ancient Land. In all, we are supporting 33 small communities across regional and remote Australia to take action where it’s most needed.
We are also very excited about the Yarck to Yea Walk/Run/Ride on Saturday 27th July. If you haven’t come along in the past, please consider making the trip – it will be a special year for this much loved event, as we mark 80 years of the Missionary Sisters of Service!
Free2b Girls
We continue to be inspired by the work Tani Langoulant and her team are doing in North East Tasmania with the three Free2b Girls programs: Free2b Girls (group support), Free2b Time (1:1 support and activities) and Free2 Fly for 18-25 year old women. As we learn more about effective models for supporting young people in our society more generally, the message is finally getting through that we can’t just treat everyone equally (ie. the same), we need to treat everyone equitably. This means looking at the person in front of us and asking them what they need to be able to access the same opportunities as everyone else. This doesn’t always mean excessive resources are required, but that the right questions need to be asked of the right people (those in front of us) so that resources can be provided that are effective! As a social ecologist, Tani understands the importance of this approach, which is why Free2b Girls is so successful.
This also reflects the approach that the Missionary Sisters of Service took over many years of visiting women, children and men across remote and regional Australia. Lorraine Groves mss actually worked in the same area that Free2b Girls now does. The day after ANZAC day, Tani took some of the Free2b Girls to Hobart to visit Lorraine. Tani wrote later that their visit was a microcosm of the “adaptive, responsive, organic, care-based framework that Highways and Byways provides Free2b girls to work within.” She specifically described the feeling of sitting in Lorraine’s dining room with the girls; “there is no judgement – just a stream of openness and homely welcome.”
Of when this photo was taken, Tani’s describes, “I feel a wholeness in that moment… the capturing of a moment in time of generations of women in one single space…. there’s wholeness in that… like a circle that’s joining up.”
Seeds of Connection
Megan Brown brought almost 40 women together for a Healing and Belonging through Culture weekend at the Yumba, near Mitchell in late May. The women were in awe of how they felt being at home on Country, and they reveled in the opportunity to connect with each other. Some also knew the Gungarri Elders who came, and were so grateful for the opportunity to connect with them again.
As Megan often reminds us, healing for Indigenous women happens when they gather and share their stories with each other. Doing so on Country really helps them to ground themselves, and become open to connecting with what is in the present moment, Country, the women they are gathered with and the experiences facilitated by Megan and the Gungarri Elders.
The weekend began with a traditional Smoking Ceremony. This was followed by a range of workshops. Smoking sticks were made to take home, and beads were threaded together. The Elders were able to also offer modern healing practices they have made their own, including creative journalling, expressive art, creative scrapbooking, Qi Gong, Access Bars and Reiki. This opportunity for Indigenous women to bring their skills back home to Country is really important in deepening their sense of identity in relationship to their Indigenous community.
Restoring Nature and Communities
Todd Dudley’s team are working through the cold days of winter to regenerate the Skyline Tier. The North Eastern Bioregional project has been set up in such a way that it supports all parts of the ecology.
The benefits of the program on members of Todd‘s team were articulated in the University of Tasmania’s specific research report in 2022.
Images: Top to bottom:
Participants at the Healing and Belonging through Culture camp at the Yumba in May 2024.
Tani Langoulant and Free2b Girls participants with Lorraine Groves mss.
An Elder at the Healing and Belonging through Culture camp making smoking sticks.