Creating Space Project

Isabelle is the twelve-year-old daughter of Amanda, who talked about domestic violence in the episode Red Flags. Resilient and insightful, Isabelle talks about her mother's abusive partner stealing her teddy bear when she was six years old. “I was just an angry child because I lost my teddy bear.” On the cusp of adolescence, Isabelle has already learnt a great deal about herself and emotion regulation. She is unapologetic for a justified anger and, at the same time, understands that lashing out in anger is not often effective. "Emotions rub off on people. If you’re angry all the time, no one will want to talk to you. If you’re calm, people wll rely on you."

“Why doesn’t she just leave him?”   Trigger warning: Domestic violence.   Amanda Cosgrove describes how it took five years to leave a man who was abusing her and the strategies that he used to manipulate his way into remaining in her life, including using her children and slowly undermining her belief in herself.   After the relationship ended, she went through counselling to rebuild her self-worth and self-respect. Forgiving herself, despite it not being her fault, took a long time. She also did courses to learn ways of identifying the red flags that can be a warning of abuse.   Despite all this work, Amanda found herself in a relationship that turned violent. Her son had to step into to save her while she was being seriously assaulted by her partner.   A woman of remarkable strength, insight and resilience, raising five healthy and happy children, Amanda shares her tale as a lesson in how, under the right circumstances, we are all vulnerable to abuse.     “Hopefully with more and more people speaking out ab

Nivelo started Equally Wed in the faith that one day, Australia would enact marriage equality. A wedding directory catering for gay, lesbian, queer and transgendered couples, Equally Wed reflects Niv's belief in equality and civil rights. "The reason why I really started this business was so that everybody had the same rights and option." The inspiration for Equally Wed came seven years ago, when Nivelo's brother and male partner opened a package containing a cake topper. The expression on their faces of joy and happiness really struck Nivelo. They had found something that represented them, something they could see themselves in.  And that, to Nivelo, is important.    * This is not a paid endorsement of Equally Wed. I just admired the imagination and motivation that it took to set up this business years ago and hold faith that one day Australia would get its act together. 

A child with a disability taught retired teacher, Elizabeth Appleyard, an important lesson on mental health and wellbeing. In a class exercise, when other children were wishing for material items, this child wished for a new hand. At the same time, this child appeared to be an essentially happy soul. He had friends, he laughed, he played.  The lesson for Elizabeth is that happiness is transient. To be happy means that, at some point, you will also be sad. They are emotions on the same spectrum. Underneath them is contentment and peace. You can feel sad and know that, basically, you're alright.  Contentment is about enjoying day to day existence, about experiencing each day as a present to be unwrapped. "I can pay my bills and I can do what I like with my day. That," says Elizabeth, "is a luxury."

Dei Phillips is a Bundjalung woman.   Fierce and compassionate, she is relentless as an activist and advocate for Aboriginal people in Australia. In trying to arrange this interview, we kept having to postpone. Dei is always busy, whether it be marching on Invasion/Survival Day or seeking legal representation for young Aboriginal first offenders.   She is a passionate educator about pre-colonial history and geography. When I finally got to talk to her, it was more than worth the wait. I got to hear about the importance of language, story, and place. These things form our culture and identity. I felt that I understood more about how utterly devastating it is to have them stolen.    And it all began for Dei back in early primary school.   As a little girl, she found herself attacking a boy tormenting a small girl with cancer. While she regrets being in a physical fight, she learnt, in that moment, the feeling of strength that accompanies protecting someone else.   It was a defining experience, in terms of becom

Teresa Benetos was a nurse in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. She’s writing a memoir about her time as a hostage in Iraq.   Growing up in a traditional Irish Catholic household, it has taken many years for Teresa to realise that, as a woman, her story is of interest. After thirty years, she says, it is time to tell the story of ‘The Accidental Hostage.’   As a teenager, she battled with her father to be able to finish her Leaving Certificate at school and study to become a nurse. Against the background of an economic recession, Teresa was compelled to seek work in London, during the era of “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.”   She left London and went to work in Belfast during the Troubles, the thirty-year armed conflict and political deadlock in Northern Ireland.   Then, in 1990, she took a job in a hospital in Baghdad. Before she returned to Iraq after some leave, she had her fortune told: She would be surrounded by uniforms and there was months of worry ahead for her parents.   On August the 2nd, 1

This episode is part-two of Bearing Witness: The backstory to Creating Space where we hear the inspiring yarn behind Ruth Nelson and how this podcast came into being. In the first episode we followed Ruth who, as an 18-year-old, inadvertently signed up to volunteer in community work with refugees leading her on the path of studying psychology.   She survived a brain encephalopathy, and in not choosing the path of least resistance, Ruth headed to northern Uganda at the age of 26 to work in community outreach as an NGO. It’s in this episode where we pick up Ruth’s story as she struggles with the futility of her presence, as a young inexperienced community worker, in an active conflict zone. Ruth saw her role, initially at least, as bearing witness to the atrocities of this insidious and complex conflict but over the two years she initiated and facilitated many programs, some of which had surprisingly comedic outcomes.   After Ruth returned to Australia to complete her qualifications as a psychologist and to wor

It seemed remiss - to me at least - with all the stories that have been shared by this project of ordinary, yet extraordinary women, it had not featured the captivating journey of its creator, Ruth Nelson.   It took 12 months and some gentle persuasion for Ruth to acquiesce to my appeal for an interview. The notion that she would become the object of interest left Ruth feeling ill at ease, yet her experience, I argued, was at the essence of the Creating Space story.   I knew Ruth’s personal story would make for a fascinating and inspiring episode, but as it transpired, the yarn - much like Ruth herself - proved difficult to contain and so, I proudly bring you the first episode in a two-part series.   We start with Ruth at 18 lying to nuns about her experience and inadvertently signing up to volunteer at a charity, Josephite Community Aid, with refugees. Following a stint in Tanzania, an encephalopathy left Ruth with three weeks to live and the prognosis of a living in a group home after she failed to die. Not

Rachael Vincent talks about the emotional impact of the postal survey on same sex marriage, or marriage equality, in Australia. It has been frightening and deeply upsetting for the GLBTQIA community to be confronted with people's level of fear and hatred. "The license given to people to say things that would not normally be accepted." Swastikas painted. People assaulted.  "This is a state-sanctioned homo-bashing festival." For Rachael, a white woman quite a long way up the privilege ladder, it is an insight into what it is like to always have to fight for your rights and your identity.   

Most of us aren't very good at changing our minds. Beliefs that we have held since childhood can be very resistant to change. If we have been raised to understand that marriage is between a man and a woman, we often believe that to be “natural” or the “way it should be.”   This is especially true if we have been taught to link such a belief to our faith in God. It is easy, under those circumstances, to be swayed by fear and worry to say that change is wrong. It is easy to take on board the messages that children will be endangered, that society will be endangered, and to be closed to any evidence to the contrary.   Rachael Vincent talks, with great love, of the three very conservative Christian women who very strongly shaped her as she grew up: Her two grandmothers and her godmother. When they realised that she was homosexual, their belief that God is love and their faith in the power of love, transcended any prejudice that could have led them to reject Rachael.   It is, what she describes, as “the miracle of

Mary is Chinese Australian, born in Fiji during World War Two. Mary believes her life is blessed. She is 76, the mother of 7 children, the grandmother of 5 children.  Her Catholic faith strongly shapes the way that Mary sees the world. The three most important things in her life are loving God, your neighbour, and yourself. To her, loving yourself is very important.  "I like this bit... We need to do the right thing by ourselves, look after ourselves." Despite the strength of her Catholic religious beliefs, she also believes that all religions are essentially good, "If we go back to their teachings, it is love God, love your neighbour as yourself." She also acknowledges that Catholicism is far from perfect. "A lot of harm has been done in the name of the church."   Mary feels it is important to accept people for who they are. She says that she tries to be accepting, especially as she herself is not perfect, although sometimes, she finds that hard. Her deep faith in God leads her to have a basic trust in life,

I interviewed Bern in her beautiful four-bedroom house, to the accompaniment of a budgie called Snowstripe. Like my home, it was strewn with toys and the walls were adorned with photos – a little child, loving parents.   We were a few days late getting to the interview. Bern’s five-year-old child had been sick with the gastro bug going around Sydney. Bern works from home and had managed to squeeze me in between meetings on a warm spring morning.   So, a normal mother, busy with work and parenting, in a normal family. As Bern said,   “We have a 5-year-old child. Property, investments, insurances, wills, we have everything every other loving couple has. Apart from the right to have our relationship recognised by [Australian] law.”   Bern volunteers with community organisations, including Park Run and Rainbow Families. She is warm, kind and welcoming. The values she learnt from her family of origin, in particular her father, are abundantly reflected in the life she leads: The importance of commitment to family,

Imagine a teacher from primary school remembering you vividly, fifty years later.   Sister Josephine Mitchell is a Josephite nun. A renowned champion of human rights and social justice, she is, among other roles, a former teacher, both in Australia and East Timor.   Educare, she says, means to grow. Teaching means helping young people to grow and realise their dreams. Providing education and being a small part of someone’s life is, to her, a privilege.   Sr Josephine tells a story about a little boy that she taught 50 years ago, on the banks of the Richmond River, in northern NSW. It seems, to me, remarkable, that she remembers individual students from so long ago.     “I can remember that little kid and many many little kids like that.”   “Most of the ones we dealt with in Timor really wanted to make something… they wanted to go further, but didn’t have any way to do it.”   The criteria for accepting children into the schools she taught in in East Timor were simple: The children couldn’t afford to pay for an

Sonia Muir is one of two women responsible for the Rural Women's Network, a government department in NSW, Australia.   Set up in the 1990s in response to the isolation experience by women during the drought, there is still a need today to facilitate the connections between rural women, reducing isolation, acknowledging their hard work, and developing their confidence and self-esteem.   This year is the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Network, and Sonia has been there for each of those years. She has met thousands of people in the course of her work. And each of them has meant something to her.   For Sonia, this is meaningful work. It has an impact on people’s lives. It allows her to feel that the energy she expends is making a difference to someone. And, as she says, “When you give of yourself and you give of your community, that comes back to you tenfold.”

“Through music you can express something that you can’t express in words and that you maybe don’t even know… it’s a line to the soul”   Professional horn player, Carla Blackwood, performs Nocturno by Franz Strauss.   From listening together to this short piece of music, a conversation opens up about the importance of music. Food for the soul, music reveals to us something of what it is to be human. Music lets us engage with the abstract and the intangible and, especially in a modern society that encourages us to focus on what is tangible and material, this is more important than ever.   “There’s more to being human than our conscious reality.”   Carla also talks about how music exposes that very human struggle between striving for perfection and the acceptance that, actually, perfection can never be attained. It’s a valuable life lesson, this notion of “listening kindly to yourself.”   She reflects also on how music, memory and place become woven together and help form our identity. The importance of recognis

Jill Asquith runs her own business in recruitment and employment. She started from her bedroom, just looking to make an income. Within a couple of months, she moved from being a sole trader to being a company. Two years later, her business works with a lot of big corporations. They have an Indigenous division where they focus on pre-employment and Indigenous participation. Jill talks about the importance of creating opportunities, not just for herself, but for others too. She talks, as well, about how you deal with failure and stay focused on your dreams. Jill's attitude provides fabulous insight into a growth mindset, and into the importance of hope and courage in pursuing challenges in life.  "I’ve just got this belief that it’s going to happen and I’ve just got this hope that some way I will work out how it’s going to go or how it’s going to happen."

Cherie Johnson is passionate about Aboriginal education.   I interviewed Cherie at the Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, while she participated in a program for entrepreneurs. While we spoke, she brought to life the landscape around us. Sydney Harbour is the traditional land of the Gadigal people. Long before colonisation by the British, this was a harbour into which whales came to breed. It had a rich social history, a shared space that saw peaceful trading with many other nations, including the Dutch and the Indonesians.   When I studied history in Australia in the 1990s, we covered aspects of the histories of many nations. In Australian history, while certain aspects of colonisation were addressed, the Myall Creek Massacre being a notable stand out in my memory, this was not a focus of our education. The white settlers were the focus. I have no memory of being taught anything about Australian history prior to colonisation, which was often, and still is, referred to as the “early days” of Australia.   Cherie

If you need a good yarn, Jacqui Cosgrove is your woman. Here, she tells a story about catching a burglar with her sister, many years ago. The story reflects the importance of community in Jacqui's life. She spends a lot of time volunteering, participating in community events and fundraising. Community provides her with encouragement and support.  As one good story tends to lead onto another, it was fascinating to hear Jacqui talking about her early life.  Jacqui was raised on a farm in the bush, in rural NSW, Australia. Her first home was a mud hut, made of rammed earth.  Her mother and father were very community-oriented. She remembers family outings often being interrupted in order to help somebody they had come across.  Her father, like his siblings, received his education by working at the school to earn it. This was a situation not uncommon in the bush at this time.  He left at 13 to go out to work.  Through the stories that Jacqui tells, it's not hard to spot the passing on of values through the generat

This is a story about potential, effort and achievement. It’s also a story about disability.   Peta Leseberg, from Bathurst, a country town in NSW, talks for the first time in her life about her disability.   When she was born, she couldn’t breathe. As a child, she had slow development.   Her childhood included a lot of time with specialists and therapists. Bullied in primary school, she chose MacKillop College, a private girls school for high school. Despite the loss of funding this entailed, her parents respected her decision.   Her disability impacts on her life in many ways.   Peta has some trouble speaking, due to poor muscle tone. This can lead to misunderstanding and frustration. Peta, in conversation, can be unsure whether people understand her or are just being polite.   Another impact is the value she places on effort and achievement. Peta has a Bachelor of Arts degree, specialising in history. Education is important to her. Also, she spends much of her time volunteering in the community. It’s impor

Marghanita da Cruz is standing as a Greens candidate for the Leichhardt Ward in the forthcoming Inner West Council election. She took time from her campaign to talk to the Creating Space Project about cumquats.   Cumquats are a small citrus fruit. The variety grown in Sydney can’t be eaten fresh, it’s too sour. Marghanita has a cumquat tree in her backyard. The fruit, she gives away to people who make cumquat jam.   In this story, simple though it may seem, cumquat jam becomes a metaphor for the networks that emerge between people and between generations. I give you the cumquats from my tree, you give me some lemons.   The making of cumquat jam is knowledge that is passed down through generations. There is value in holding onto this knowledge. Modern Western society often encourages us to purchase so much of our diet and to waste what we do not consume. The women who gather to make cumquat jam are custodians of a wisdom that took a long time to be achieved. It is the techniques for cooking that are learnt onl