Page updated:
Friday, 7 September 2007

PEOPLE making a difference...

Julie de Brosses | Emma Stone | Robina McCurdy | Morag Gamble

The getting of inspiration

Among these people are many quiet achievers - people who go about work that benifits others at the same time that it meets their personal goals. These people usually go unacknowledged, yet they serve as examples for others who prefer to cut their own course through life rather than follow conventional paths.

Those that follow are just a few who have benefited others while learning life's valuable lessons.

Julia deBrosses

Medical lab technician, Himalayan tour guide, English teacher, waitress, shoe maker and bush regenerator, Julia DesBrosses is a modest but extraordinary woman who has crammed a lot of living into her less than 40 years.

Julia de Brosses

Julia, who has a BA in Anthropology/Religious Studies, worked with the Seed Savers Network as a paid 'seed banker' for nine months.

"Before that I was a volunteer and I continued to go in after that to accession seeds or train volunteers when required", she said.

With the light, easy going personality of someone with confidence in her ability to cope in all sorts of situations, Juia's life has been crammed with travel, learning and adventure. Physically, she has that subtle strength that comes with work in the outdoors and though quietly spoken she has an unobtrusive mental toughness that gets things done. Her straw-blonde hair frames a face that carries the tan of a life lived largely outside.

Julia spent her formative years with her parents in Kenya. "They ended up in Kenya in the early 60's... ran out of money in paradise and decided to stay there", she explains. Then followed a bleak winter in England in 1973 and, eventually, Australia.

So, what stands out most in her life? "That's a big one... there have been so many exciting and revelatory moments, mostly since I've integrated my personal and spiritual beliefs into my practical existence through bush regeneration and other 'greening' work. The best thing that ever happened to me was discovering Buddhism. I think travelling and working in India taught me most".

Julia returned to India in mid-2000 after receiving the news that she has been selected to document the work of an Indian non-government development organisation, a project that would occupy the following year. She came back to Australia after that but was soon off to Brazil, a country she has since spent much time in.

Julia has the gift of being able to work out what it is she wants to do, then making it happen. "It is working on really good projects and issues that matter and that will affect change somehow", she says in accounting for her optimism. "If an idea makes me feel really good inside and thus generates energy, I keep going with it. I drop the ones that don't, quickly".

Her advice for people seeking a meaningful role in life: "Most important is to have raison d'etre, to live according to our dreams, not compromising our lives to the mundane and unsatisfactory - that's dying slowly!".

Emma Stone

It took only a few minute to size her up. Yes, she was young. No, she hadn't worked in a developing country. Yes, she did know her stuff. And yes, she was mature beyond her years. Jude Fanton, director of the Seed Savers Network, had been lobbying the aid agency to accept Emma for a three month placement with the Planting Material Network, the seed bank and seed exchange network the agency operated in the Solomon Islands. Jude explained that Emma had completed her training with Seed Savers and was now ready to pass that on to others.

Emma left a few months later. Sending her proved a good decision.

Emma Stone

Emma was 24 when she was sent on her first assignment to the Solomons and, like others who follow their own path in life, there is a quiet confidence about her. This has grown over the years, now in her 30s, Emma is a confident and capable woman whose presence would enhance the work of any organisation.

She set out on her path in life years long before her time in the Pacific tropics.

"When living in Canberra, I did a diploma in fitness and recreation leadership and was involved in disabled sports. Then I went travelling and WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) in Canada".

Fate sometimes works through serendipity - the seemingly chance discovery of finding the right thing at the right time. For Emma, serendipity struck on a Canadian farm.

"One evening they showed me the Global Gardener video and, listening to Bill Mollison (who developed the Permaculture design system with David Holmgren), I thought 'that’s the man I want to meet’. So I went out the next day and got a ticket back to Australia. Within three or four months I was living at the Permaculture Institute in Northern NSW."

Below the rainforest-clad mountains of the subtropical north, on the upland farm that was the Institute, Emma worked in the food garden and catered for the courses the Institute offered. After that, she made a living through environmental work in bush regeneration and revegetation. It was becoming clear that restoration planting and horticulture, especially the cultivation of food, would play a larger role in Emma's future.

Eventually, she came to the Seed Savers Network in Byron Bay where she spent time as an intern learning about the growing, harvesting, processing, storing and distribution of seed through community organisations. Her work provided the foundation for her venture into overseas aid in the South Pacific.

Emma arrived in Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands and location of the Planting Material Network in early 1998. Here, at the organisation's farm on the edge of Honiara, she instructed the two local women who were employed as seed curators, set up a seed database and formed friendships that would later lead to her living in the country. She was also stung by malaria-carrying mosquitoes and became ill.

That first assignment lasted only three months but in 1999 Emma returned to the project as an Australian Youth Ambassador - a federal government scheme which sends young Australians into the developing world to further their experience. During this visit Emma traveled to a number of provinces where she trained villagers in seed production and seed saving as part of the decentralisation of the Planting Material Network to regional hubs.

Emma, it seemed, had found her life work. In mid-2000 she was on the road again, this time to Vietnam to join a friend and spend a short period on a rural development project in the highlands. She returned to Northern NSW and helped set up a training centre in the ranges that form the Queensland/ NSW border, then spent a few years working at Daley's Nursery.

A young woman does not go through this wealth of life experience without learning a great deal about herself and about people in general. After returning to Australia, Emma realised that she had learned much which could be of use to others charting their own path in work and life.

"Working in aid and development you need to have support from organisations, lots of project management skills and the broad appreciation of the role of development.

"You have to be driven by your passions. That’s what’s got me everywhere I’ve gone... and you have to experience different things. I went through a whole range of industries before I discovered what I wanted to do.

"Be open minded and be open to influences. If you find something that’s of interest, go and volunteer awhile... develop initiative and self-confidence through work and life experience."

Emma is now advising on a development project in Honiara, Solomon Islands. "I will stay here at least a year", she said. "I married here". Her first child was born in late-2005.

Robina McCurdy

Robina McCurdy is a woman used to facing dilemmas. Twice in recent years she has had to choose between staying at home in Golden Bay, New Zealand, or going to places where food is scarce and the threat to personal safety high.

Robina McCurdy

The choice has always been easy - she finds her passport, makes her flight booking and packs her bags. In both 1995 and 1997 she did not unpack them again until she was in South Africa.

Robina, now in her late-50s, is one of those people who fill their lives with interesting work. She has managed to turn her interests into her vocation. Behind this is a strong determination and a capacity for hard work not necessarily expected in a woman who is not physically imposing. Spend a little time with her, however, and realise that under that long, red hair lies a keen brain and an ability to make connections between disperate things.

For Robina, there is none of the separation between work and non-work familiar to those in the regular workforce - her work is her life.

Robina's early life story is similar to that of others who came of age in the 1960s.

"When I was 21 I went on a what you could call the ‘New Zealand overseas experience’ for two years to South East Asia and India. There, I saw intact village life which combined food production, tree cropping and human habitat in a way which really was integrated design. I knew that this was a sane way for people to live, that it was our birthright.

"As well as positive examples, I also saw the dissolution of healthy human habitat, squatter settlements and agriculture which was unsustainable due to Green Revolution practices", she said.

Influenced by her overseas experiences, Robina returned to New Zealand intent on living in the way she had seen. She found work with CORSO, a New Zealand aid organisation, where she spent two years as a project officer. Soon, the yearning to work in development overseas was starting to pull her away. First, though, came the setting up of a home base.

"I left CORSO and started on work developing the sustainable community which became Tui Community in Golden Bay Province in Nelson. It’s an intentional community which has been going for over 20 years and is based, essentially, on Permaculture principles and is dedicated to personal growth and living lightly on the earth.

"Just before we purchased land for Tui I did the first Permaculture design course in New Zealand with the intention of putting it into practice. After that, I quietly went about developing Tui and travelling a little bit", she reflected.

Opportunity comes when least expected and often throws people into confusion - should they sieze it, take a chance and open their lives to new influences and new ideas or should they stay put? It becomes a choice between the security of doing the everyday and the open-endedness and uncertainty of a new way of life.

When faced with this choice Robina took the opportunity offered by the Tlhelego Development Project in South Africa. "I received an invitation to work on designing the gardens at the project, in training people in organic agriculture, teaching Permaculture design courses and working with Permaculture in the school curriculum".

It was here, in a South Africa emerging from its apatheid past, that Robina carried out her work of managing food gardens and conducting PRA (Participatory Rural Appriasal) surveys with villagers to identify their needs.

"I stayed there for two years, followed by a year’s break, then returned at the beginning of 1998", she explained. Despite the physical danger, Robina went on to develop a pilot program focused on Permaculture in schools in Capetown’s infamous Cape Flats squatter settlement.

"I piloted the SEED (School Environmental Educational and Development) programme, which focused on community development through the transformation of school grounds through the curriculum in the squatter settlement", she said, adding that she obtained funding for the project from the New Zealand and British high commissions.

Students make a garden in a South African school during Robina's tour as trainer

"The highlight of my whole time was working in Bongaleta Community School, developing the Permaculture approach to education. This I knew would work, and there I had the chance to trial it. Another highlight was the opportunity to bring culture into the heart of Permaculture. I was working with a cultural tutor who composed songs and stories based on Permaculture themes to underpin the work that we were doing with the classes in the practical and environmental areas".

"I want to talk about the challenges", Robina insisted. "The greatest challenge to my working in South Africa has been apartheid. The attitude of people, passed on to them through apartheid, is that working with your hands is denigrating... that if you want to get anywhere in the world you don’t work with your hands, you need to work with your head... and that’s been transferred to the school system.

"Working with the land, working manually and practically, is used as a punishment. It’s such a disincentive across that whole culture to growing your own food and tending your own land".

Her work in South Africa at an end, Robina was on the move again, but before returning to New Zealand in 1999, she worked with Dr Robert Gillman, ex-NASA astrophysicist and founder of the Context Institute in the USA. Together, they guided residents of Findhorn Community in Scotland in the development of a new community design.

Robina also took training in the SEED program of whole-school development and in ecovillage design to Brazil. "In the ecovillage design training I focused on social design as it is so important to the sustainability of these settlements", she said.

Inspiration is very important in maintaining motivation. For Robina, one of her primary sources of inspiration has been the South African development assistance agency, PELUM - Participatory Ecological Landuse Management - in Zimbabwe.

"It’s the way they have integrated participatory rural appraisal methods, holistic resource management and organisational development with Permaculture to come up with a methodology that is highly effective for community participation and getting things on the ground", said Robina. "The other inspirational place is Fambidzanai Permaculture Center outside Harare, in Zimbabwe.

"The greatest inspiration in my life, as a person and what he’s done with the land, is Japanese ecological farmer, Manasobu Fukuoka. I heard him speak when I was in the United States. And, of course, there was Bill Mollison and David Holmgren who developed the Permaculture idea... both of them have been important."

In 1995 Robina was in Australia to promote a new field of activity - Permaculture design in schools. Her three-day course in Adelaide inspired many and launched what was to become a new focus of activity.

The year 2000 brought renewed emphasis on the social aspect of communities to Robina's work. Social design - structures that allow people to interact constructively, to solve their problems amicably and to plan for a sustainable future are the necessary but too often ignored aspect of intentional community development.

Robina's year started with social design workshops for Christchurch and Waitekere cohousing groups and then moved into a full ecovillage design process for Valley Farm near Paeora, New Zealand. "The Valley Farm consultation included human settlement and landuse design plus sustainability analysis of the group's social and economic plans", Robina explained.

With co-worker Daniel, Robina then facilitated the participatory design of Mangataipa Marae in Hokianga. The two were then invited to teach a two-week Permaculture design course at a marae (the traditional meeting place of New Zealand's Maori people) near Hamilton.

In August 2000 she was again in Australia, this time to attend the Permaculture Convergence at Djanbung Gardens and to run courses there and in Sydney. She returned to New Zealand then left for Brazil the following October to continue her work with the SEED program and to meet up with Australian development worker, Julia desBrosses.

Now, however, Robina was sensing a need to work closer to home. "I wanted to spend less time working overseas and more time in my areas of training at home", she said. Out of this came the Planet Organic training organisation that offered a year-long course in organics. That occupied much of her time until recently. Her work has been carried out through a charitable trust, Earthcare Education Aotearoa (Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand).

By 2005, however, Robina's attention had returned overseas where she ran training courses in the USA and Canada. Currently, she divides her time between the training and building a new houseat Tui Community, at home in New Zealand.

Robina has advice for people interested in taking a life direction that may involve development work.

"The first qualities you will need are adaptability and sensitivity to the local conditions and to the indigenous culture. Then there’s being able to listen and having at your fingertips a sufficiently diverse tool kit to be able to adapt methods and techniques to the needs of people and the local conditions", she explains.

"An essential is a basic Permaculture design course... and the ability to use local knowledge and local resource people in the Permaculture movement.

"Decide on the geographic and activity areas you would like to work in - whether it’s agriculture or whatever - and find in Australia people you would like to apprentice with... people you could consider as your mentors in those fields. Go and work alongside them. Find out how they got their training and knowledge base. Talk with people who have worked in developing countries and read the book Getting Ready by the Permaculture and Development Group in Sydney... that’s what I strongly advise."

Morag Gamble

Parental influence can be a negative influence on behaviour, but that is not the case with Morag Gamble. "My parents were great guides with healthy and ethical living," Morag explained. "Permaculture One was in our home very soon after it was printed."

Morag Gamble

Her parents must have done a good job for Morag has a presence that inspires. She has a way of getting things done that makes the difficult look easy. Under her long, blonde hair and behind that lightly freckled face is a sharp, analytical mind.

Morag’s self-made career in sustainable community development started in her teens and continued into her early twenties with the environment and peace movements.

"After a while I started questioning the ‘fight’ approach and wondered what I was achieving. I wanted to live and to help others create a positive way of life".

She studied environmental planning and design and landscape architecture to explore how communities could fit into their environment and to design spaces appropriate to their needs. "I felt that the landscape architecture we were being taught was a process of imposing designs on others... often with little relevance to the local environment," she said.

Inspiration came when Morag journeyed to the UK to study at the Schumacher College. There, she was influenced by luminaries such as Vandana Shiva, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Arne Naess, Fritjof Capra and Bill Devall.

"I realised what I had been exploring was happening around the world and felt a great deal of strength and hope from this," she said. "The Schumacher College experience led me to spend time volunteering in Ladakh where I experienced what a sustainable culture really is... and I came to realise that the only place we really can make a difference is in our own homes and our own cultures".

On returning to Australia Morag became the representative for Helena Norberg-Hodge's International Society for Ecology and Culture. She arranged farmstays with rural Ladakhi families for Australians interested in experiencing farm life in the small Himalayan country.

The first thing Morag did on her return was to enrol in Max Lindegger and Frances Lang’s Permaculture design course at Crystal Waters ecovillage. Here, she met her partner Evan Raymond and, soon after, moved from Melbourne to Brisbane.

In Brisbane, Morag and Evan took on a leading role in the development of Northey Street City Farm. "I saw the city farm as a way of creating a piece of ecovillage within the city and of creating a strong sense of community identity. We are still involved with Northey Street although we now live at Crystal Waters". Morag then took on the role of coordinator with the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network (www.communitygarden.org.au), assisting in the development of community food gardens in Brisbane.

"After five years at city farm, I moved to Crystal Waters Permaculture Village where I now teach Permaculture, community food systems and other subjects and undertake permaculture and ecovillage design work through my small business, SEED (Sustainability Education and Environmental Design). Generating income from this community-based work has been a challenge, but I followed my dream and persisted, and now I am able to create enough," Morag explained.

By 2005, the construction of their resource efficient house at Crystal Waters was nearing completion. Their courses are now well established and attract participants from all over the country. Morag is called upon to advise organisations on development issues.

She and Evan spent a year traveling and teaching overseas in 2003 where they visited ecovillages and urban agriculture sites. The tour brought them up to date with the thinking and the projects that are improving urban life. They returned full of new ideas and shared these through presentations along the East Coast.

If people want to follow a similar self-made career in sustainable community development, Morag suggested that they: " ...do a Permaculture design course, attend workshops and seminars about sustainability, join or start a local Permaculture group, become a volunteer in a community-based organisation and become involved in all aspects of running it".

And for motivation?: "Follow your vision strongly... take regular, little steps to make it real... follow your heart... share your vision with others. We can’t do it all by ourselves, so share your knowledge and experience and stay positive. Work cooperatively with others".

Information on courses and SEED International: www.SEEDinternational.com.au