Aunty Jeanette Edwards, Aunty Jessie George and Aunty Dorothy Moffatt plant some of the very first herbs and vegies of the new garden at the GEGAC Elders Lounge. Photo: Jake Lynch/GEGAC
By Troy Brown
If you’ve been around the Elders’ building at GEGAC lately you might have noticed there is a garden being created.
Now you may be asking, why are we building a garden?
This garden is being built for community, and once the plants are ready for harvesting, community will be able to come and pick what they need.
It’ll also be building stronger relationships within community, activities for the Elders, or even a meeting area for people who just want to hang out.
Healthy Lifestyles team members Rhiannon Hayes and Rani Stokell have been at the forefront of making this garden happen, and they hope the project has a broad range of positive impacts for community.
“The fruits and vegetable that grow here will provide healthy food, people will be able to learn about what they are growing and eating, as well as weaving cultural significance into our bush tucker garden and passing on knowledge to younger generations,” Rani said. “It also provides a space for community to come together, have a yarn, get outdoors, pull some weeds and take home some fresh produce.”
As of right now the garden has a range of fruits, herbs and vegies including tomatoes, zucchini, silver beet, basil, parsley, and lettuce, to name a few.
“We want to be able to provide our community with healthier lifestyle choices,” Rhiannon adds.
GEGAC has been making culture the very centre of everything we do.
And this garden is a testament to that, in terms of living off the land, being able to eat what we grow, and getting back to those roots.
The design of the garden symbolises the dot paintings of our culture, and the hope is to get more Aboriginal designs included before it is complete.
The little Boorai over at Dala Yooro are going to make scarecrows for the garden as well.
The development of the garden will be ongoing and not structured, meaning there is no set finishing point for it – it’ll keep changing and improving.
Community has played a massive role in the establishment of the garden, and we hope to see mob out there using it and benefiting from it.
Rhiannon says when they were planting the garden they were conscious that the recent increase in the cost of living had made it harder for mob to access fresh produce.
“That was a motivator for us, to have heaps of vegies growing here, because we want to be able to help community,” she said. “That’s always our inspiration.”
Rhiannon said building the garden has also had a really positive impact on herself, personally.
“Being outside, working with the soil, this has been really good for my own mental health,” she said. “Plus, I’ve learned a lot about how I could grow vegies at my place. It’s given me the confidence to try this at home.”
The team are keen to hear suggestions of what to grow in the garden, so feel free to have a yarn with Rhiannon or Rani next time you see them.
Thank you to Bunnings and the Stephanie Alexander Program for sponsoring and helping out with the garden!
