Creating Space Project

In this episode, we talk about mental health, suicidality and abortion. If you are triggered, please seek the support of caring people. In Australia, you could call Lifeline on 13 11 14.   While Katie was at university, she became pregnant. Having children is something that Katie takes very seriously. It is not something to undertake lightly.   Katie carefully considered all her options, thought them through, discussed them with appropriate people, and came to the conclusion that an abortion was the best choice for both her and for the potential life of the foetus. She was simply not the right person, at that time, to raise a child.   Katie, a community lawyer and co-host of the Progressive Podcast Australia (https://progressivepodcastaustralia.com), is deeply committed to the values of justice and compassion.   In this episode, we talk about how a person who is supportive of early abortion and a person who is opposed to early abortion may, in fact, hold very similar values.   In issues that are potentially v

Have you heard of the Cove in Taiji, Japan?   Ashley Avci has not only heard about it, she has been there. She has stood for long hours, days, weeks and months, a horrified witness to slaughter. She is a Cove Guardian with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. In this episode, she talks about her personal experiences in Taiji.    Ashley has put her head into the water and listened to what can only be described as screaming, from pods of up to eighty dolphins and whales. And then, the silence when they are all dead, from great-grandparents down to the smallest calves.   Passionately and fiercely opposed to the hunting of whales and dolphins, Ashley was quite prepared to accept the emotional toll that it has taken on her. It seemed an acceptable price for attempting to bring to the world’s attention and so, hopefully one day, stop this practice.   To her, it is simply unacceptable to turn away from suffering and injustice.   “I cannot sit back while I know there is so much hurt going on in the world.”

Aurelia Roper Tyler talks with Ruth Nelson about the damage to her family, home and community on learning that her house in Homebush was to be significantly impacted by the Westconnex development.  Homebush Lost is the audio of a short film, of the same name, produced by Paula Rix and Ruth Nelson for Disconnex: Reframing the Resistance, an exhibition at the Chrissie Cotter gallery, showcasing art and salvage items connected with the Westconnex project, an urban motorway extension project in Sydney, Australia.   

Clare works in a travel agency in a small town. She tells a story about a lady who had to leave where she was staying and was looking for new accommodation. Everything in the town appeared to be booked out. Rather than giving up, Clare persisted, eventually finding something with the assistance of a neighbouring shop.   For Clare, the story reflects just how much she appreciates connection to other people. It also reflects how deeply she values people.   “People are important and need to feel like they are cared for and connected to the rest of society.”   In childhood, her parents frequently took in foster children, exchange students, and strays who just needed somewhere to stay. Clare believes this has powerfully influenced her.   “My parents always put people before money and before possessions.”   Clare acknowledges that this approach to the world can lead to her feeling as though others sometimes take advantage of her, and that she can have trouble saying no. For the joys that connection and helping brin

  This is a story about finding the right religion.   Sirisha respects all faiths and non-faiths. However, the religion of her childhood, Hinduism, did not resonate with her anymore and she embarked on a journey to find the core values in her life.   “I needed something to ground me.”   The religion she found was Islam.   “It really made me a better person”   She started to value the so-called little things of life, “the little blessings that I have in my life, clean water, and the people that I have and the relationships that I hold.”   Becoming a Muslim has come at a cost. Sirisha lost friendships. She is frequently expected to justify her choice and encounters the hostility which routinely meets Muslims in Sydney.   Sirisha also has the ongoing internal struggle to separate her religion from the people who claim to represent Islam and use it as an excuse to commit heinous acts of violence.   “You’re constantly dealing with a lot of grief.”   Sirisha uses the teachings of Islam to centre herself.   “The way

In Women of Sudan Part Two, five Sudanese mothers talk with remarkable honesty about the struggles of learning to raise children in a society radically different to where they themselves grew up.   From a village lifestyle, without money and surrounded by people who know you and step in to help, to a Western city, where teenagers have debit cards and are not accountable to most of the people around them, these parents encounter problems they have never seen before.     Recognising that many of the techniques they knew in their homeland are not appropriate here, such as corporal punishment, and tired from the seemingly endless tasks of learning to integrate into a new country, such as learning the language, understanding the housing system and finding somewhere affordable to live, training for and finding work, learning to use public transport, all underpinned by the trauma which they carry from the civil war in Sudan, it is little wonder that the task of learning an entirely new approach to parenting sometime

The Nuba Mountains are a remote region of northern Sudan, in South Kordofan. The Nuba are various Indigenous tribes who inhabit the region.   Abyei lies further to the south and was also part of South Kordofan. It is just north of the border with South Sudan. Abyei Area, rich in oil, is disputed territory between Sudan and South Sudan. I remember being in Nimule in 2007, listening to troop carriers in the night driving north to Abyei, when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was allegedly in place.   Five women, Muslim and Christian, who arrived in Australia as refugees from these two areas talk to Jodie Heterick and I about their homeland. Jodie and I learn about the 99 mountains of Nuba, about building your home, scarification, dance, and war.   These are beautiful, strong women. From hiding in the rocks from aeroplanes dropping bombs on schools, to adapting to modern life in Khartoum where you must pay for things and are looked down on for your traditional practices, to building a new life in western Sydney,

Alison Harrington is a formidable woman. She is a woman with a great deal to teach the world about creating a life of meaning and purpose. Alison is also a fabulous illustration of Carol Dweck’s “growth mindset,” which is about the underlying beliefs people have about learning.   A social entrepreneur, Alison tells the Creating Space Project a simple story about getting seniors to dance around nursing homes with silent disco technology.   “I’m really fascinated by how we can use this technology to improve the outcomes for people with dementia and basically make people healthier and happier.”   Alison has a post-graduate degree in social impact.   “It’s incredibly gratifying to do something where you effect the emotional outcome of people, particularly people who may not have great circumstances.”   Alison has undertaken a number of entrepreneurial enterprises.   “It’s always great for me when I’m creating something entirely new.”   New business ventures are a risk. For some people, that is such a daunting pro

Climate change is impacting agriculture.   “We know it’s going to bring different weather conditions, and hotter conditions, less water, more freak events that will ruin crops eventually. It is scary but it’s interesting to see the way it will react with our crops in the future.”   Grace studied agriculture and now works as a microbiologist. She tests pharmaceuticals for the presence of bacteria.   “Which I’m hoping will give me experience for agriculture, because agriculture really relies on the use of microorganisms.”   At the moment, agriculture uses nitrogen fertiliser to increase crop yields. The problem is that this is bad for the environment and can be costly.   Grace is interested in how bacteria can be used to meet that nitrogen requirement instead.   “Because there are lots of bacteria that instead of using oxygen to respire, like we do, use nitrogen. And the product of that kind of breathing is that they basically produce fertiliser.”   She is fascinated by bacteria. They have interesting structure

Mikell works in technology.   “I’ve been in technology now for more than a decade professionally and this topic of harassment and sexism and discrimination in tech comes up repeatedly.”   As a teenager, in a robotics competition, she and every other member of her all-girls team were groped in a human tunnel. They were assisted by their male mentors to effectively address this situation. It taught her about the value of men who are prepared to listen to and accept women’s experiences.    “The reasons I’m in tech still and haven’t kind of given up is that I have had very good allies. I have had men who they do their best to be empathetic, they do their best to support me. They take me seriously when I say there’s a problem.”   At university, studying engineering, Mikell made friends predominantly with males. She identified it as a coping mechanism for being in a male-dominated field. She looked down upon traditionally feminine ways of dressing and behaving.   “It took a real mental shift for me to basically dea

“Being an Aboriginal midwife is my absolute passion.”   Leona McGrath has just participated in the Walk with Midwifes, as part of closing the gap for Indigenous health outcomes in Australia.   “When I had my own children, I often say that if I had another black face in the clinic, in the birthing room, on the postnatal ward, I know my experience would have been a whole lot different.”   Her reason for wanting to become a midwife was to look after her own people. Leona was aware of the health disparities in Australia. But she was horrified to learn, at university, just how bad infant and maternal Aboriginal health outcomes are. This knowledge spurred her on, a single parent, to complete her Bachelor of Midwifery.   Leona’s family story shapes her as the strong and passionate person she is today.   Her great-grandmother, a Woppaburra woman from Great Keppel Island, was taken to the mainland in chains.   “I say I’m the person I am today because of her. There’s something that’s come from my Big Nanna.”   Her moth

Kath has a costume shop in an Australian country town. She sells costumes, armoury, live action role play gear, weapons, pop culture and other paraphernalia. She loves cosplay and the way it allows you to express yourself and be who you are.  She talks in this interview about some of the factors that have enabled her to succeed in running her own business, namely the support from her family. Kath is passionate, she’s a hard worker, and she’s comfortable taking risk. Her mother, who died a few years ago, raised her to “not pass through life.”  Kath is teaching her kids that they can do anything they want in life. But, she acknowledges that this is a measure of privilege, as are the circumstances that have allowed her to succeed in business. "I would like them to follow their passions and not be put in a box and whatever they want to do in life, they can do. Once again, I wonder whether I’m raising them that way because I have been a little bit privileged. I feel safe that they will be safe to do that."

Sophie is part of the Youth Food Movement - which is about providing a way for young people to have conversations about food and health, to inspire them to eat better, buy and waste less, share more and enjoy the food experience. Sophie had a "negative relationship with food" as a child and teenager.  In her mid-twenties, she began caring for a young girl with Type One Diabetes. This  afforded Sophie new insights into her food choices. A curiosity as to where our food comes from, how well it is produced, and how it can be grown, led her into studying Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security. Her hope is to "transform my negative relationship with food in the past to something where I could really help people." Sophie is passionate about food security, which she describes as when people "have access to the types of food and the amounts of food they need to lead a happy, healthy active life." The Youth Food Movement, for Sophie, is about addressing food security:  "There seems to be a lot of problems at the mo

Anna Chisolm is a whole food plant-based health coach. Formerly a social worker, she uses her skills to help people, especially those with chronic health conditions, transition to diets that help them heal their bodies.   “If it was as easy as getting the information, we’d all be fit and healthy. My skills in counselling and social work have really played a big role in why I’ve been successful as a health coach – I can really help people with that behaviour change.”   She moved from social work into this area because she had embraced this way of eating herself and found herself to be so much healthier and happier. It came naturally to her to want to educate others on this healthy lifestyle.   “So important for me to do something I’m passionate about and believe in myself and trust my gut instincts.”

Sr Monica is the leader of the Sisters of St Joseph in Australia. She tells a simple story of an encounter with a man on a train. From this story, emerge themes of dignity, courage, the looks of other people, the ongoing work of seeking non-judgement, and how it is the unfamiliar place that is the catalyst for growth.

MC Free, a remarkable young woman from a Cook Island/Tongan background, works for Rap 4 Change, a hip hop outreach educational program in the outer western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. She works with all sorts of kids – disabled, transgender, diverse cultural backgrounds, both in the community and in juvenile detention. Her personal background, of abuse and living on the streets, gives her common ground to reach out to these kids. Free's passion in life is helping them discover their worth.

Ruth Wells works with Syrian refugees in a psychosocial organisation in Gaziantep, a town in the south-east of Turkey, 50km north of the Syrian border. Most of her colleagues are Muslim and wear the hijab.   As a non-Muslim Australian woman, Ruth reflects non-judgementally on what it is like being in a context where “gender is a little bit different to what I’m used to and what that has meant about what role I get assigned in those contexts.”   Constructs of gender, sexuality, religion, power and the body emerge from this story. So does a surprising amount of laughter, despite our awareness of the backdrop, which is the horrors being perpetrated against Syrians.   Ruth reflects on the importance of admitting that you don’t know, and of seeking the meaning in someone else's life.   “I feel like the work that I do, because it’s outside my own culture, there’s a danger of it being kind of potentially paternalistic or judgmental or whatever. So I feel like I need to have this other current that runs the other way

In an earlier episode of this podcast, Standing Your Ground, I interviewed three women occupying a house in the inner west of Sydney, Australia. The house was slated for demolition and the four of us sat in the grounds of the house around a table, with imaginary cups of tea, until we were arrested.   The purpose was to protest against Westconnex, an urban motorway extension in Sydney. The research indicates that urban motorway extensions, as well as being exorbitantly expensive, are damaging to health, community and environment, and actually encourage more cars onto the road.     Based on a still from a Russ Hermann video, Janet, a Sydney-based artist, created a painting depicting the four of us at the occupation.   Inspired by This Changes Everything and a talk given by Naomi Klein as part of the Sydney Peace Prize, Janet entered into environmental activism and non-violent direct action about a year ago. She became involved with the anti-Westconnex campaign in Sydney, through No Westconnex Public Transport a

June Alexander grew up in a rural area of Australia.   When she was 11 years old, she was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder.   “Why can’t you behave like other girls?” her mother asked.   She was also given a diary.   “I was smitten, I found if I could write, I could connect with the outside world.”   Writing a diary became a survival tool, a way of connecting with the outside world.   “It became a way of sharing thoughts that were crowding my mind and I had no one to share them with.”   However, at the same time, the diary was also aligning itself with her mental illness.    “It became a way for the illness to emphasise rules and regimented life style.”   When she received a correct diagnosis in her 30s, she started a long recovery journey. With guidance and help from a treatment team, the diaries became a healing tool. They became part of a process of discovering herself.   In her 50s, June realised the role that the diary had played in her life. She also came to realise the possibilities

Jodie asks her husband’s grandmother, Marlys, about moving to Australia, pregnant, and becoming a new mother. At the time, her husband had started a new job and was extremely busy. Where they lived, they had no family support.   It may have been decades ago, but it’s a familiar story for so many women:   Morning sickness.   Isolation. Loneliness.   Feeling “totally abandoned.”   The overwhelming changes – to your body, to yourself, to your relationship with the baby’s father.   That sense that you just don’t know what you’re doing. That you’re struggling. That doubt in the life you have chosen.   “A time of great crisis.” “Everything around me had crashed.” “Looking back, I wonder how I managed. Somehow you got through it.”   Then there’s learning to breastfeed, learning to bathe the baby. There’s feeling helpless, feeling “like a cow.”   There’s the feeling that being a mother should come naturally, and a sense of failure to feeling like you don’t know what you’re doing.   “I’ve got one job right now, and I