PLACES HAVE BEEN FILLED, REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

We’re excited to announce our first workshop – Storying with the Farm – which will be held at the Bhutanese and Multicultural Community Farm on Sunday 15th December from 9:30am-12:30pm.

Registration is free and open to community farmers of the Bhutanese and Multicultural Community Farm and residents who are closely connected with the Farm. To register, please follow the appropriate link below. Registration forms are available in English, Swahili, Nepali and Kinyarwanda:

Register for Storying with the Farm in English

Register for Storying with the Farm in Swahili

Register for Storying with the Farm in Nepali

Register for Storying with the Farm in Kinyarwanda

Places are limited, and these will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. The registration form will close when we have reached capacity. If you register and can no longer attend, please email m.hunt@whealth.com.au as soon as possible so that your place can be offered to someone else.

Please note that if you miss out on a place at this workshop there will be more opportunities to be involved with the work of the Northeast and Border Community Food Alliance in future.

More Information

The Northeast and Border Community Food Alliance is hosting a series of community workshops across the region to explore people’s dynamic and varied experiences of food. During the workshops, a facilitator will guide participants through a series of short activities in small groups, to create and share stories about their food-related experiences.

The workshops last around 3 hours, including lunch and refreshment breaks. Morning tea and lunch will be provided at the workshops – participants may advise of any dietary requirements on their registration form. Participants are welcome to bring a small cultural food dish to share with their small groups if they like.

The workshops are about celebrating food and community. Please wear clothing that you are most comfortable in, which may include traditional cultural attire. Some of the workshop will be held outdoors so please be mindful of the weather and factor this into your choice of clothing and footwear.

The workshops are part of a research project with the University of Melbourne. During registration, attendees will be provided with further details of the project in plain language and asked to consent to have their interactions in the sessions unobtrusively observed and recorded for research purposes only.

More information will be sent closer to the workshop to the email given during registration.

The North East Local Food Strategy has been in existence since 2018, when a group of individuals and community organisations gathered to draw on the idea that collaborative action would lead to a more equitable future for food, people and the environment across our region.

Currently, WHGNE is leading the development of this vision because we believe that in order to achieve optimal health and wellbeing for rural and regional Victorians, we must ensure that gender and climate responsive planning are central to informing resilient local food systems and their vital role in determining health and wellbeing outcomes, across the supply chain and those settings in which food is accessed.

We see our role as sharing our expertise in health and gender equity to guide this work, and as advocates driving change for communities to thrive equitably in our region.

To mark World Localisation Day on 21st June, WHGNE has created Local food, local people: Nourishing our community. This is a free digital magazine featuring the first-hand stories of people across our region, who are engaged in diverse efforts to ensure fresh produce, community connection and food to nourish the soul are in abundance in our region.

We hope this will act as a resource to showcase the incredible community spirit driving initiatives making up local food systems – from stories about cooking classes, community champions and kids with green thumbs to stories of circular economies, waste reduction and communities and gardeners who have come together to ensure that the rising cost of living does not exclude access to fresh produce – we’re hoping that this is the first collection in a series of lived-experience perspectives gathered, around the benefits of a local food systems approach for our region and for Victoria.

You can have a read here:

As the organisation leading the renewal of the North East Local Food Strategy, WHGNE submitted a response the Inquiry into Food Security in Victoria at the end of July.

Our submission contends that it is vital to ensure strong leadership and coordination across the state when it comes to food systems work, that take into consideration socioeconomic, place-based factors, with resources to match.

Our submission urges decision-makers to take action to increase access to social supports for underserved communities to address the drivers of poverty, and support ‘food with dignity’ approaches to food insecurity.

Read a summary of the submission here.

Or you can explore our full suite of recommendations and the supporting evidence by reading our submission here.