May 8, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
“I didn’t realize community engagement was my passion until I started working at Inala Community House. We run different programs and work a lot with refugees. Settlement & Support is really about helping new immigrants to belong here.” “Refugees...
May 8, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
“Belonging? That’s why I started volunteering. It has been a turning point in my life. I’ve found it difficult to make friends in Brisbane and with all my children now at high school I found myself isolated at home. I found volunteering opportunities by...
May 8, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
“Now, there’s always a solution. Before, it was always hopeless. I was always lost if mentally sick or physically sick, not that I get sick a lot. It’s been a journey with a lot of support and healing. I’ve spent lots of money on healing but I don’t regret it....
Apr 15, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
I met Shani at bean. in the centre of Brisbane. I’ll be at bean. in May for the Anywhere Festival collecting your stories of belonging and outsiderness and creating the world’s first Belonging Hotspot so I was there to sort out a few details with the new...
Apr 12, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
Laurette didn’t like this photo of herself. But her brother, the other half of their musical group Laurette N James, did. So she let me use it. Laurette came to Bemac’s music networking evening and mesmerized me by singing, a cappella, with her eyes closed. Time...
Apr 1, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
Natalie de Jager, who is a singer and songwriter, talks about the practicalities of belonging and how contributing and feeling useful is part of belonging at any age. “I’m part of a church that I’ve been with for maybe 15 years. And I definitely feel like I belong...
Mar 30, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
I met Trent at the Close the Gap event in Brisbane’s West End. There was a dynamic vibrant painting hanging on one of the walls of the enclosed park and I’d asked around about the artist. I found Trent stacking chairs in a store room. Trent does a lot of painting now,...
Mar 26, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
Anje, who performs Brazilian music with her group The View From Madeleine’s Couch, talks about how a space, an unknown country, can grab us and envelope us in a moment that we may have eluded us in our own countries of birth. This moment for Anje was in central...
Mar 23, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
I met Trisha at Bemac’s networking night for female musicians. She didn’t know anyone when she arrived and looked a little uncertain walking into a crowd. But once she started talking, her whole personality opened up and she smiled and laughed readily particularly at...
Mar 18, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
I was introduced to Uncle Adam at a Close the Gap event in West End, Brisbane. Close the Gap events are held regularly to improve the health of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, to close the gap between them and the rest of the population. What’s...
Mar 17, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
We started talking about writing first. In a Brisbane cafe. Then about the belonging project I’m working on, architecture, urban planning and how the three are linked often through art. James politely said he didn’t want me to record him and we digressed into social...
Mar 17, 2016 | Belonging, Your Stories
“I did this course, an Alpha course, about ten years ago. We just all talk and you learn and you grow within this course. And then we went into the chapel and we just had silent prayer between us and God and at this time all of this came out of my mouth — I was...
