Community Engagement With Problems That Matter
By Lynn Daniel, High School Coordinator, Kindlehill School
lynn@kindlehill.nsw.edu.au
Kindlehill School, in the Blue Mountains in NSW, began a Senior School program (Years 11 – 12) in 2024 called Buran Nalgarra – meaning strength and learning through togetherness, in the Dharug language. It is an exciting and innovative alternative to the traditional HSC/ATAR program in NSW, with a curriculum that explicitly addresses the ecological and social transformations that need to happen in our place and time. Central to the program is the engagement of students as action researchers in their local community, addressing ‘problems that matter’ and with a view to making impactful change.
Katoomba Cafes Send Plastic Packing
Last year, our Senior School Pilot group, comprising our Year 10 cohort and five home-schooled students, set out to have impact in reducing plastic in our local waste stream. We chose the 2-litre plastic milk container as a focus. In our LGA alone we dispose of approximately 3.84 million plastic containers a year, equivalent to an 8-storey building on our school ballcourt.
We began our ‘problems that matter’ project on Country with a Dharug artist, asking what it would mean to him to have less plastic in our waterways. We surveyed businesses, researched solutions (such as bringing back a milk run with glass bottles), and we wrote and performed poetry that spoke to our connection to country, our concerns about climate change and our frustrations about the challenges of making change.
One of our questions for local cafés was whether they would consider switching to a bulk-milk dispenser system, which can save up to 80% of plastic waste by supplying milk in large recyclable 10L plastic bladders. Most businesses we spoke to confirmed their interest but said that the conversion was cost prohibitive.
So we narrowed our focus and launched the Katoomba Cafés Send Plastic Packing campaign to subsidise the cost of cafés converting to a bulk-milk delivery system, saving up to 80% in plastic waste creating a great news story for Katoomba and the Blue Mountains, and making a significant difference to the amount of plastic waste generated on our main street.
We have partnered with nine cafes on Katoomba Street, Six Simple Machines, who design and manufacture the Juggler Milk System, the Chamber of Commerce; and the Blue Mountains Council.
Penny Sharpe and Trish Doyle were thrilled to give audience to Kindlehill students, enthusiastically listening to their pitch to support Katoomba St Cafes to send plastic packing. This project centres on student voices and learning how to have meaningful impact in bringing about positive change through community collaborations.
Our students visited the NSW Parliament and met with local Member, Trish Doyle and the NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe, to pitch for our plan to be funded. The pitch included compelling statistics such as the following: Our nine cafes stand to save over 36.9 tonnes of plastic waste over five years – that’s over 70 cubic metres of compressed plastic! Ayla performed her spoken word piece written for this meeting and it is included below with this article.
The campaign is win-win on every front: it’s a great news story that will receive widespread attention both locally and, we think, more broadly, promoting Katoomba cafés, bulk-milk systems, and ways to reduce plastic waste. It is a highly replicable idea and can be picked up by communities everywhere. And central to it is an opportunity for student voices to be not only heard but impactful in creating the changes they want to see.
This year, we are documenting our approach to Senior School with a blog that includes student voices and innovative community projects. This can be found here: https://blog.kindlehill.nsw.edu.au/
To view a beautifully produced film that demonstrates a ‘problems that matter’ approach within an artistic framework, see A Murmuration at the following link: https://vimeo.com/856614416
My Country
by Ayla Turner
Please listen
Corporations are digging our graves we are reaching 6 feet under
And I'm begging
Stop digging put down your shovel
Please listen
My country is on fire again
It is reaching into my home, and we are all breathing in smoke
While a scattered possum's tail is ablaze making a desperate escape
And another forest turns to ash and dust in our hands
An injured bird says its final goodbyes
Please listen
My country is under floodwater again
It is reaching my front doorstep
And the land is sliding
It’s washing away future
Please just listen
What are you doing
A scientist locks himself to the doors of corruption
A student is on her 5th year of striking from school
Another person is arrested and jailed for pleading for their future
They now have a 2-year jail sentence
Are you going to tell me that’s fair
While the Shells and BPs are still scouring out land for oil slicks that run deep in its veins.
What are you doing?
Are you standing by idly while others are fighting for their freedom, for your future?
Are you letting your voice be heard calling out for a change in this world? Are you standing up and speaking out to make a difference in this life, what are you doing with the time that we have?
Because the clock is running out.
Because I am begging for you to just listen to even a fragment of what I am saying.
And I know it must be tiring for you to listen to another poem about climate activism, but I am exhausted from having to tell you.
Because you are supposed to be protecting me,
but instead you're worried about the money you will lose.
Well, I am worried about the lives that we will lose, including my own.
And I don't want you to hear this and think, yeah, I should do something and then do continue to do nothing.
I don't want to be the token activist in a room full of inaction
I don't want to have to take matters into my own hands because I'm still a kid.
I'm begging and pleading for you to just listen
and do something to help.
I just need help.
We just need help.
We just need you to listen.
We just need you to act
This spoken word piece was composed by Ayla as part of the student pitch to NSW politicians in the campaign, Katoomba St Cafes Send Plastic Packing. Ayla is a young activist particularly focussed on addressing climate change.