Ampliseed

The Art of Storytelling with Shawn Callahan The Ampliseed Podcast: Inspiring Stories, Episode 5       This is the fifth episode in Ampliseed’s Inspiring Stories series— interviews with leaders who inspire us on our pathway to an equitable and nature positive future, who share with us what brought them to this space, which opportunities inspired them, and what challenges they had to overcome.  Jump to: On this episode | About the guests | Show notes | Transcript ON THIS EPISODE OF INSPIRING STORIES How do we lift the profile of our work and excite others with our vision? What's the best way to share our progress and stories of impact with both communities and funders? Join us in conversation with Shawn Callahan, founder of storytelling company Anecdote, to learn what sparked his interest in storytelling for businesses and share his insights and tips into how to identify a good story, how to remember it when you need it, and how to make it work for your organization and audience.   ABOUT TODAY'S GUESTS Shawn Callahan (Invited Guest) Shawn Callahan is a story specialist and founder of the business storytelling company Anecdote, where he has helped some of the world’s top companies to make their strategies really stick. His specialty is helping executives and leaders find and tell the stories that engage the emotions of, and ultimately inspire action from, their employees, customers and communities. Shawn is based on Wurundjeri Country in Melbourne, Australia. Ariadne Gorring (co-Host) Ariadne is the co-CEO of Pollination Foundation. Ariadne is passionate about Indigenous-led cultural conservation, working with the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) for over 20 years on native title and cultural and natural resource management. She is a former Atlantic Fellow for Social Equity at Melbourne University, and recipient of the Barbara Thomas Fellowship in Conservation Financing via The Nature Conservancy Australia. Ariadne is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne. Kirsty Galloway McLean (co-Host) Kirsty leads Ampliseed, a global network connecting practitioners with a rights-based, human-centered approach to building environmental resilience. Her background includes over a decade with the United Nations working in Canada and Japan, and 15 years as CEO of a management and communications consulting firm in Australia. As Executive Director at Pollination Foundation, she works to connect and support international organisations, philanthropists, business, Indigenous and community leaders, and other corporate foundations to drive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Kirsty is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne.   SHOW NOTES This interview was originally recorded in 2020.  Additional resources Podcasts mentioned by Shawn in this interview include Anecdotally Speaking, This American Life, Freakonomics, Sway, The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, and Malcolm Gladwell's Podcast.To find out more about what Shawn and Anecdote are up to today, please check out the Anecdote website https://www.anecdote.com/, and follow them on social media. Twitter: @anecdote @ShawnCallahan   TRANSCRIPT Shawn: We're immersed in a world which is full of stories. You've got to be good at spotting them. ----more---- Ariadne: From Ampliseed and Pollination Foundation, welcome to Inspiring Stories. This series makes space for conversations with leaders who inspire us on our pathway to an equitable and nature positive future. I'm Ariadne Goring, co-CEO of the Pollination Foundation, and we focus on bringing community to the heart of climate solutions. Kirsty: And I'm your co-host Kirsty Galloway McLean. I lead Ampliseed, a global network connecting practitioners with a rights-based human-centered approach to building environmental resilience. The topic for today's session was inspired by a common theme surfacing across our member discussions related to shaping project narratives. Some of the questions we've been hearing are along the lines of how do we lift the profile of our work and excite others with our vision? How do we shape our project stories in a way that speaks to the communities we work with, and equally resonates with prospective funders? What's the best way to share our progress and stories of impact? And that's why we're excited to bring to you today's episode, which comes from a Zoom originally recorded in October, 2020 with Shawn Callahan. Shawn's the founder of storytelling company Anecdote, and he's one of the world's leading business storytelling teachers and advisors. Shawn is joining us today to share what sparked his interest in storytelling for businesses and to share his insights and tips into how to identify a good story, how to remember it when you need it, and how to make it work for your organization and audience.   Ariadne: As Kirsty mentioned, this session was originally recorded as a Zoom presentation with slides. For podcast purposes we've edited the story to make it a standalone for you to listen to wherever and whenever suits you best. So we invite you to sit back and enjoy taking time out to listen to Shawn's inspiring story. Shawn: Well, it's great to see everyone here today. I was having a listen to Mikaela's talk. That was fabulous. I loved it. I learned so much, especially about augmented reality. So I've got a question for you. She put out a tender for her development. How many people actually responded to her tender? Zero... Zero... Zero. Alright, zero. Whereas this is the thing about stories, like he hadn't thought about Mikaela's talk. You hadn't thought about that particular little story that she'd told, but for some reason, stories stick in our mind and the facts which are embedded in that story are instantly memorable when you think about that particular scenario, and that's one of the great benefits of storytelling, that these facts come along with the story. It's not like, on the one hand you have the facts, and on the other hand you have the story. You actually put the facts inside the story. And that's what gives some of the great power of storytelling. Now, I'm gonna assume that you're all advocates of storytelling. I'm not gonna give you the case for storytelling, or anything like that. Instead, what I'm planning to do is just give you some techniques, things that you can do to take the information and how you're communicating it now and translating that into a narrative format. So that's sort of my plan. Actually, I just wanted to start with just sort of how I got into storytelling really. So my first real job after, you know, working at the Pizza Hut was to work as a research assistant at the Center for Resource and Environmental Studies. I was doing a degree in geography and archeology, and one day my lecturer walked past and I was reading a printout of an essay that I had written, and it was one of those, you know, old fashioned perforated paper sort of printouts. You know, the 132 character wide. And I'm sort of flipping through that and the lecturer walks past, he goes, Oh, Shawn , you know a little bit about computers. And I said, Well, I know how to write my essay on a computer, but that's about it. And he said, Well, a friend of mine, Paul Parker, he's looking for a research assistant. Why don't you head over there and you can start on Monday. Sort of thing. And I went, Oh, okay. So off I went, got the job. And what it showed me straight away was this real interesting connection between the stories that Paul Parker would tell about the Daintree Rainforest and what was happening there versus the development that was going on and then all the data that was used to back that up. And it was this real interesting interplay between story and numbers. I must admit I didn't understand it back then. It was some time after that, before it sort of clicked for me that, this was something that he was doing in probably an intuitive way, I have to stay, but was actually having enormous traction for him, you know, in terms of getting things done. But that sort of led on to me working eventually - because of the technology element - I ended up working for IBM. And when I was working for IBM, my job was to go out and collect stories from companies. So I ended up hearing literally thousands of stories. In fact, I'm still doing that. I just did a project this month or, or last month around collecting innovation stories from the geological survey here in Australia, and that was really interesting to sort of see how innovation actually works in that organization. So I get to hear lots and lots of stories and one of the things that I guess I learned from that, is that the stories we tell in organizations are not beautifully crafted, well structured, amazing stories. They're all kind of like tiny little anecdotes, just real life examples of the things that are going on and unfortunately, a lot of people who are talking about storytelling are sort of cribbing their expertise from Hollywood and they're saying, Oh, you need to do the hero's journey and do these amazing plot structures with turning points and denouments and all that sort of stuff. Well, stories in organizations just don't look like that, right? The stories we tell are just like I say, these small things, and if you start to tell those big overwrought stories, people start looking at you going, There's something going on here. Right. They feel uncomfortable. They feel suspicious. Whereas what they just want to hear is you just sort of say, Hey, look, I had this interesting example the other day, and oh, this is what happened. That's kind of the sort of story that people are looking for in organizations, so I'm gonna help you find and tell those types of stories. That's my interest. That's not saying that those big stories can't be told. I certainly have used them for bigger set pieces, if you like, in organizations and, you can sort of use those bigger structures for strategy stories and we'll touch on that. But the real meat and potatoes is these small stories that I think we should all be able to tell and have in our back pocket. Now, I think to do it though, you sort of have to get into the habit of storytelling. Now, some people already had that habit, right? I have a theory about this. I think the people who have the habit already are surrounded by people who tell stories. So they've learned it by osmosis. But if you haven't had that, you sort of have to build up that skill and I think it's a bit like brushing your teeth. You have to have a trigger that sort of goes, Oh, I need to brush my teeth. It's usually walking into the bathroom. Obviously you do the action, brush your teeth, and then you get a benefit. And the benefit is the fresh minty taste of freshly brushed mouth, I guess. Now storytelling is a bit the same. The trigger is when you find yourself being very opinionated about something, "I think", you know, and you go off on what you think and give your opinion. You have to start to catch yourself doing that and go, Oh, what's an example I can give? That's all what storytelling is, it's just examples, right? And so once you've think, Okay, I've got a need to tell an example. Often you don't have one. Oh, I can't think of a single example. That's when you gotta go and look for one. So when the next time you go off on that opinion, you can sort of say, "and let me just give you an example... just two years ago...". And then you launch into that little story and that's what gives that capsule of information that people remember, they feel, they get inspired to take some action. Of course, the benefit you get when you share a story is the response from your audience, right? People lean in... Actually, I'll tell you what it works really well is when they tell your story back. That's when rapport really actually happens. So they're the benefits. That's the immediate thing you get back by sharing a story. So that's a habit. So I've got a bit of a process I take people through to build this habit. Just some things you have to think about in terms of your own sort of personal journey and using stories in this sort of systematic, purposeful way that we're talking about here.   The four steps that I like to talk about and help people with is, First of all, you gotta discover stories. I mean, stories are floating past us all the time. You know? Like we're immersed in a world which is full of stories. You've gotta be good at spotting them. You've gotta be going, Ah, that's a story. Oh, I could tell that story. And so you have to start to notice stories. Secondly, you have to have some way to remember these stories. And funny thing is, is when someone asked you to tell a story, they said, Oh, Shawn, can you tell me your favorite story? I nearly always just go blank, I can't think of a single story as soon as someone asks you to tell a story. But if someone sort of says, You know what? Can small things make a big difference? Immediately little stories pop into my head, and it's because you're sort of attached to, and I'll show y  ou how we do this, is you're attached to certain themes and ideas and it's amazing that stories are there. You just have to have the right thing to trigger them. Of course you gotta share these stories, lots of different ways of doing it, different types of stories to share, and we'll talk about a couple of different story patterns. And I, and I'll get you to build one of the story structures, help tell the story of the knowledge network. I thought that could be fun. And then finally, you can't tell the same story over and over again. I mean, you get bored of it yourself. So that's one thing. And that shows eventually. Also, if you've got the similar audience, no-one really likes to hear the same story over and over again. So we wanna refresh them. We wanna keep new stories out there. Anyway, so that's my kind of plan. Okay, so let's get into discovery, because this is the foundation, this is really where we need to start with anything we do around storytelling. I guess the first thing to think about the discovery element is what I would say is what I call spotting stories. I'm gonna share a little framework for spotting stories. Cause you have to be able to say, Yeah, that's a story. No, that's not a story. And unfortunately, a lot of people are talking about stories at the moment. It's become the idea of the moment, but they're not actually telling stories. They're saying things like, Oh, we've got this fabulous story. Our story is about conservation and making a difference in the world, that's the story. And then they sit back like they've just told a story. Right? And you know, you don't get any of the, those marvelous benefits of memory and emotion and inspiration unless it's actually a story, right? I remember going over to Virginia to do some work with a company over there and they'd spent quite a bit of time building a story bank, right? So they collected, videoed, all these people telling stories, and when I arrived they wanted to show me their story bank. So I sat down and the first story that came up was where three people sitting on a couch. And they're looking at the camera and they're saying, Oh look, this company is a fabulous company. It's really, the people here really are looked after. We have great, healthy options in our cafeteria. We can go down there anytime to grab, a bite to eat. And, and, and we got this great 401K program. And anyway, they, they talk like that for, I dunno, probably three or four minutes, and everyone's looking at me like, "Look at our story. Isn't that a great story?" And I had to say, sorry that these are not stories. They had all these film clips and none of them were stories. So that's why we really need to be good at spotting them. So here's the framework, right? First of all, a story nearly always starts with a time marker. So as soon as you hear someone say, Oh yeah, just the other day or two weeks ago, Oh, actually the last time we got together, or back in 1983, as soon as you hear a time marker, there's a good chance you're about to hear a story. What's the archetypal time marker that we all know and love? Phil: Once upon a time. Shawn: Thank you, Phil. Absolutely. Now, highly recommend you don't use that in any business setting. I find that I'll send you in the wrong direction, but that it's exactly the same thing, right? You wanna start off with a strong time marker. And if it's not a time marker, sometimes it's a place marker. Of course, if you're Star Wars, it's long, long time ago, and a galaxy far, far away, right? So they're going for both: time marker, place marker. You know, you can start a story by sort of saying, Oh yeah, we're in the boardroom. And Sarah walked in, right? So that's the beginning of a story. The next thing in any story is that stories are made up of events. They're not made up of opinions, they're not made up of viewpoints, or concepts. They're made up of "this happened. Then that happened. Then this happened", and I drew it this way because good stories are made up of events that sort of have a bit of a shape to them. Like I remember the guys from South Park were talking about how they put together that animation and they would say, they would look at their storyboards and they would look at each frame and they would ask themselves, What's the word that just pops in their mind in between the frames? So this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. If it's an "and" they delete those frames. Because it's boring, right? There's nothing really happening. It's just a set of events, one after the other. The two words they're looking for are, "but", and "therefore". This happened. Oh, but then that happened. Therefore, that happened. Oh, but then that happened, right? So all of a sudden you have some "up and down" in your story. We love up and downs. We love starting off high. Going low, coming up high again. I'm not saying you should make these things up, but you should be looking out for stories that have these shapes because they make for great stories. Someone asked, you know, what makes for a compelling story? Well, one of them is things that go up and down, you know, lots of buts and therefores. The third thing that you're sort of listening out for to sort of see whether it's a story, is that stories have people. Well, tell me, what's the indicator? What do you hear when you have people in your story? Diego: Dialogue. Shawn: Dialogue. That's a good one. There's two things. Dialogue is one, and we'll talk about dialogue in a moment, Diego, that's great. But the other thing we hear are people's names, and it turns out we actually love people's names in our stories. We much prefer to hear someone's name than a role. Sometimes we're trying to protect privacy and we say things like, "so we had a field worker who...", and then you tell the story and you keep on saying "field worker". Well, for some reason that doesn't engage us half as much as to be able to say, "Vanessa". And even if, say, if you have to protect privacy, you just sort of say, so, uh, Vanessa was one of our field worker and this is what happened to her. By the way, that's not her real name. Anyway, so Vanessa, Vanessa does this and Vanessa does this, and Vanessa does this, and by the end of it you're going, Gee, I hope Vanessa's okay. Or, oh my God. Gee, Vanessa did a great job, right? We don't care if it's her name or not, but we much prefer to have a name. So these things are giving us indicators as to whether it's a story and these things have to be there. If they're not there, then it's not a story, but there is one thing that. Is missing that has to come out, right? So if I could tell you something now that has these elements and you can tell me whether you think this is a story or not. So I got up early this morning and I got myself my breakfast and organized myself, had a shower, sat down in front of the computer, ready for today's presentation. What do you reckon? No, no. Definitely not a story. If it is, it's like the worst story in the world, right? And it's because all stories have to have something that's unanticipated. There has to be something in the story where we go, Oh, I wasn't expecting that. Oh, that's interesting. Now, of course it doesn't become a business story unless you have a point. Right. So that's the difference between the stories that we sit down with our friends at coffee and we are just chatting away. Oh, what did you do on the weekend? Oh, this really interesting thing happened. You know, we tell those stories. That's all about social cohesion and bonding and getting to know each other. It's sort of entertainment stories. When you're sharing a story to business leaders, they need to know what the point is. Otherwise, they get a bit restless. If you launch into a story and you don't have a point, they sort of go, Oh, what's going on here? I need to know why I'm listening to this. So, of course, the first thing I want everyone to start to do is become a bit of a story collector. By the way, where would you say are some of the places you would find stories? What are some of the good sources that you've seen so far in your experience? Dani is saying in the field. Yep. Absolutely. By the way, the ones you see in the field, they are so powerful because they're about the things that are happening here and now. Right. And they're from your first person perspective, which again, adds another level of authenticity to your story. Other sources? Well, of course we read lots of stories. Or, from other people. Absolutely. They're telling, telling stories. Books that we're reading, things that are happening to you. Like, you are in a story yourselves, right? Lots of stories happening to you. So what we need to do is just get into the habit. When you hear a story or come across something you just wanna jot it down. Now, I don't want you to write out the whole story though. I don't wanna write it out like you have to have the skills of Hemingway to craft this story. Cause you won't do it. You won't have, people don't have the time for that. And also, writing and crafting a story is quite different to what I'm talking about, which is oral storytelling. And in oral storytelling, it's best just to write a couple of dot points, enough information for you to remember that story, to be able to tell it. Again, that's the story journal. But the other thing that, to get good at this, just to get your ear in for stories, is to listen to podcasts that are very story based. I saw this wonderful thing on the news. There was about this language professor in the US who decided he would teach himself how to speak Arabic in nine months. And he was wanted to speak it fluently in nine months and he didn't take any Arabic lessons and by nine months this guy was in Saudi Arabia. Speaking fluent Arabic. And the way he did it was he got native speakers to just talk to him, never speaking English at all, talk to him in Arabic by just taking picture books and just describing what was in the picture books. And his point was is that language is acquired. It's not learnt. I dunno, how many of you have ever tried to learn a language by learning it, by the grammar, you know, and going through all that, how hard that is to translate that into spoken language. Whereas the way we learn a language is through acquisition, having the language around us. That's why when you move to a country where they've got a different language, that's when you're immersed, that's when you learn the language. You know, your rate just goes enormously. I think the same is true for storytelling. It's a language-based skill. So one of the things you want to do is surround yourself with stories, and that's why spotting stories become so important as. Couple of the podcasts I like: this American Life, Freakonomics, Sway, The Way I Heard It, Malcolm Gladwell's podcast. Anecdote has actually just put out a podcast. We've got about 70 episodes. When I say just put out, it's a couple of years now, but we share a new story every week and just talk about how you'd use it. So if you wanna build your repertoire of stories, that's another good spot to listen to them and build up your story bank. So remember I just wanted to share one technique for remembering stories. Then we'll get into building or crafting a story together. I think. So if you wanna remember a story, so you've just come across a story. You go, Wow, that's a great story. I'll give you an example. I did some work for the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, and we did this big conference of all of the community leaders cuz they were worried that they weren't sharing knowledge between the different parts of the recovery. And so we thought, Okay, well maybe we can connect them together by sharing stories. There's this lovely idea, which is the shortest distance between two people is a story. And so we were sort of building it on that basis. So I asked the chairperson, Christine Nixon, who used to be our police chief here in Victoria, can you tell a story to set the scene, the fact that we're gonna use storytelling? And she went, Oh, I've got one. She said a couple of days after the fire ripped through Victoria, a company that makes spectacles - OPSM - put caravans out in the fire-affected areas for anyone who had broken spectacles or needed anyone to look at their eyes. And so in this one little town, it was called Narbethong a couple walk up to the caravan, an elderly couple, and the woman's complaining of grit in her eye. And they walk into the caravan, they look at her eye, they clean it out, it's all good. They then turn to the husband and sort of say, Is there anything we can do for you? And he goes, Oh no, I'm fine. He says, Look, I'm clinically blind anyway because of diabetes, but look, nothing you can do about that. And they said, Oh, well, so when was the last time you had a checkup? He said, Oh, probably about seven years ago. Seven years ago. Oh no, it's too long. You have to get checked up and there's all sorts of different procedures, etc, they can help out in this area. Anyway, they organize him to go and see an ophthalmologist. Turns out for his condition now there's a technique that will actually help him recover some of his eyesight. He does it, has the operation. He gets like half of his eyesight. And as soon as I heard that story, I thought, Oh, I wanna be able to tell that story. Right? That's a nice little story. And, and so this is the technique. Once you find the story, go and share it with a colleague, you know, a trusted colleague who you can tell the story and ask this question, What is this story about? What's the point or points? There? Usually many points you can draw from this story. So my colleague, Mark, he said two things. He said, and excuse the language, but he said, "even in the shittiest situations, good things can happen". I went, Okay, that's a good point. The second one he said was, "Look, it's so important for corporates to get involved in the recovery process and help communities". So anyway, we start to have a conversation about what this story means, and what you're doing is you're really getting to understand the story. Then if you tell that story two or three times in the next few weeks, that story will be in your mind. Forever. And I have to say this is, it is uncanny because then what happens: six months later, you haven't even thought about that story, you're in a meeting and someone says, " can small things make a difference?" And you go, Well look, actually I was doing some work for the Victorian... It will just pop into your mind, you know, like the topics. If someone would sort of say, how important is it for corporates to get involved in community actions? "Well, I was doing this work for V...", you know, it will just be there for you. But you gotta go through that process of understanding the meaning of the story, really thinking about it and then telling it a few times. And in your telling, you gotta have some details in that. We'll all have different views of what that couple looked like, but that doesn't matter. You need to be specific enough so people can see those images. Because stories are about pictures. They're not about words. Pictures is what we're after. And there's a couple of little details. Like I said, it was in a little town called Narbathong right? And it's these little details. And you know the Christine Nixon, I used her actual name. Christine Nixon was the lady who told the story. And what that does is it creates credibility for your story. Like if I just sort of said, "Well, there was this woman, and we went out somewhere in Victoria", the listener is sort of going, Yeah, did this really happen? No, they, they start to wonder. So you gotta have a few details. Don't overdo it, right? Don't swamp it with details, but you gotta have a few details to make it, credible. Righto. So what I wanna do is do a quick exercise around the clarity story, because I think this is the sort of story structure that people use over and over again. I find, and let me just quickly describe that too. The clarity story pattern has four parts to it. Essentially, you sort of say, "Oh look, in the past it was like this, and then something happened. So now we're doing this. So the future can be like that." It's just a very basic story structure. Great for change. It's actually the best use for it is when people are asking, So why? Why are we doing that? Well, let me tell you why we're doing that. In the past it was like this, and then something happened, and then we're doing this. So the future can be like, And they are. Oh, okay. That's why we're doing it. So it answers that why question. It's great for any change that's going on. There was just one last thing I wanted to share with you. That was on the refresh side. Like when do you know when your stories have run out of steam? I guess a couple of different things. When you've told it many times, when you've lost interest yourself, if it no longer makes the point, sometimes you've been telling this story that makes a point and then something happens in the world like Covid or whatever, and all of a sudden your stories don't make the same point that they used to make. They do lose impact again, with changing environment and other things that are going on. You really do have to have new stories, some new stories. When you move to a new organization. I worked with a general manager who was heading over to New Zealand from Australia to run the company over there. And all he had was Australian stories and I said, That's gonna drive the New Zealanders crazy. They don't wanna hear Australian stories, you gotta have New Zealand stories. So he went on this tour around all their plants and he just filled himself up with New Zealand and they just loved it, you know, because it was a form of respect really, to say that he cared enough to learn their stories. And when you're changing roles, you know, sort of a new identity, like if you've come from, I start off in a pure technical role and you know, computer programming and you sort have to have different stories when you go from there to, you know, sort of behavior change type role. So that's another time to start to share new stories. Ariadne: Thank you Shawn. As you were talking and sharing your stories today, I had this visual in my mind of being a child with a bug catcher. When I was a kid I remember being given a bug catcher for one of my birthdays, and we’d go out into the garden and try and catch butterflies and bugs. Then we’d put them into these little containers, and we’d research them to find out what the bug was, or look at the butterfly’s markings, and then we’d let it go. And I feel a bit like storytelling is like capturing these little stories and putting them in your books and remembering them and researching them and then letting them go out into the world. So thank you, we appreciate your time and expertise and inspiring us to be great story-tellers. Kirsty: That’s such a beautiful visual, Ari. And yes, thank you Shawn from me as well. I’m often tempted to try and convince people with logic and argument, but I know from experience that a compelling story is a far more powerful connector and I’m always in awe of those people that I think of as natural storytellers. That’s why I love how Shawn has broken down the process of finding and shaping stories into such simple and practical advice. Distilling that story pattern into elements like “In the past it was like this, then something happened, so now it’s like this, and in the future it will be like that” – it’s simple, and easy to remember, but also very powerful. I know that my greatest weakness is remembering the great stories I hear, so I’m definitely going to follow Shawn’s suggestion of setting up a journal to capture stories to help strengthen my own storytelling skills. Ariadne: Yes, thanks Kirsty. I really think that stories have the power to shape the world, but insights drawn from catalytic initiatives - they don’t spread on their own, they really do need to be caught – like butterflies – and understood, and communicated in a compelling way - particularly if we want to use them to inspire changes in behaviour. At Pollination Foundation we’re really passionate and believe in the power of story to create change. Crafting authentic and captivating narratives that weave data with storytelling is so essential to the success of all our initiatives, and for this reason we are designing a StoryLab project to work out how project outcomes can apply in other situations.  Our hope is to collate an invaluable resource of knowledge that captures change and impact over time, so others can take up the ideas with confidence. If anyone listening and interested in our approach, then do reach out for a conversation with us, we’d love to hear from you. And we'd also like to close today with a special thanks to the BHP Foundation whose support makes this work possible. If you're interested in hearing more about nature positive inspiring stories, we'd love to have you. So please do subscribe to the Ampliseed podcast series or head over to our website to learn more about what we do. And thank you to all of our listeners that have joined us - we hope that you've learned a little bit more about storytelling today, and that you're inspired to harness the power of storytelling to support your own work.

Mobilising Communities through Social Media with Zilanie Gondwe The Ampliseed Podcast: Inspiring Stories, Episode 4       This is the fourth episode in Ampliseed’s Inspiring Stories series— interviews with leaders who inspire us on our pathway to an equitable and nature positive future, who share with us what brought them to this space, which opportunities inspired them, and what challenges they had to overcome.  Jump to: On this episode | About the guests | Show notes | Transcript ON THIS EPISODE OF INSPIRING STORIES "Storytelling is one of of those powerful ways that you can transform people's hearts. And then people's minds." As a well known movement builder in the creative industries and gender activism, over the last few years, Zilanie Gondwe has moved deeper into conservation advocacy. Join us to learn from Zilanie's experiences in how conservation movements can benefit from creative approaches that increase visibility and mobilize communities.   ABOUT TODAY'S GUESTS Zilanie Gondwe (Invited Guest) Zilanie Gondwe is the Director of Malawi's Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICON), an independent, non-partisan policy and research organization dedicated to driving nature conservation to the heart of development in Malawi. A well known movement builder in the creative industries and gender activism, over the last few years, Zilanie has moved deeper into conservation advocacy. Zilanie is based in Lilongwe, Malawi. Ariadne Gorring (co-Host) Ariadne is the co-CEO of Pollination Foundation. Ariadne is passionate about Indigenous-led cultural conservation, working with the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) for over 20 years on native title and cultural and natural resource management. She is a former Atlantic Fellow for Social Equity at Melbourne University, and recipient of the Barbara Thomas Fellowship in Conservation Financing via The Nature Conservancy Australia. Ariadne is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne. Kirsty Galloway McLean (co-Host) Kirsty leads Ampliseed, a global network connecting practitioners with a rights-based, human-centered approach to building environmental resilience. Her background includes over a decade with the United Nations working in Canada and Japan, and 15 years as CEO of a management and communications consulting firm in Australia. As Executive Director at Pollination Foundation, she works to connect and support international organisations, philanthropists, business, Indigenous and community leaders, and other corporate foundations to drive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Kirsty is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne.   SHOW NOTES This interview was originally recorded in 2022.  Additional resources Learn more about the pangolin History of the ivory trade via National GeographicThe Lilongwe Ecological Corridor Initiative (LECI) To find out more about what Zilanie and ICON are up to today, please check out the ICON website https://icon.mw/.   TRANSCRIPT Zilanie: I live by the words in the work that I do of Sir David Attenborough. He said that saving our planet is a communications challenge. It really is, because storytelling is one of those powerful ways that you can transform people's hearts. And then people's minds. ----more---- Ariadne: From Ampliseed and The Pollination Foundation, welcome to Inspiring Stories. This series makes space for conversations with the leaders who inspire us on our pathway to an equitable and nature positive future. I'm Ariadne Gorring, co-CEO of Pollination Foundation, where we focus on bringing community to the heart of climate solutions. Kirsty: And I'm your co-host, Kirsty Galloway McLean. I lead Ampliseed, a peer-to-peer learning and doing network of landscape scale conservation projects around the world. Today's episode comes from a Zoom recorded in February, 2022 with Zilanie Tamara Gondwe. As a well known movement builder in the creative industries, and also working in gender activism, over the last few years, Zilanie has moved deeper into conservation advocacy, and she's joining us today to talk about ways conservation movements can benefit from creative approaches that increase visibility and mobilize communities. Ariadne: ZIlanie's talk was originally a Zoom presentation with slides. For the podcast purposes we have edited this story to make it standalone for you to listen to wherever and whenever suits you best. For any visual exclusions, like maps and other images, please check out the episode notes. So now sit back and enjoy taking time to listen to Zilanie and her inspiring story. Zilanie: This is the story around the work that my colleagues and the networks that we have here in Malawi do to mitigate the harms and reduce the wildlife, illegal wildlife trafficking and forestry crime in Malawi. I am the co-founder and director of the Institute for the Conservation of Nature, which is a platform that brings together expertise for communications and advocacy, but also for research around issues and also management of projects. Sometimes , Malawi is described in various journals and publications as being in Eastern or Central Africa, and it's not. It is in Southern Africa, we're landlocked, we're surrounded by three countries, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique. I come from the north of Malawi, in a district called Rumphi. Nchenachena is in the Highlands, so it's quite hilly where we are. It's in a place called Nyika Plateau, which also has a huge animal reserve and there are many forestry reserves around this area. So we are a people who are called the Poka people. We live in the clouds and we walk amongst the gods, and Nchenachena literally means 'beautiful, beautiful' twice: 'chena, chena' because it's that gorgeous up there. In Nchenachena, there are a diverse number of activities that people engage in, but the primary one, like most of Malawi, is agriculture. And like most of Africa, the primary producers of food are women. Over 70% of Malawi's food is produced by smallholder women farmers, and my village in Nchenachena is no different. These women are in these pictures. We're learning how to , produce chili and paprika using organic methodologies, organic farming methodologies in a project that I was involved with them. And it was great. These women showed me such acceptance. And that was the beginning of my love story, really loving where I come from and understanding the women that I come from in a new way. so, protest culture is quite strong in Malawi. I get behind women in the village who want to talk about their rights, who want to protect each other from harm, who want to educate their children, who want to increase their livelihoods. But I also get involved in issues that are very topical , and require, you know, the decision makers at the highest levels to hear us. So I'm very much involved with issues around gender rights, and the visibility and, and of rights for women in particular, as well as anti-corruption issues because there's a very high violence rate here against women and girls. There's a very high rate of sexual violence as well as other kinds of violence, economic, and physical violence. So we went to Parliament to take our protests to the parliamentarians around the issues of trying to, we're trying to pass a termination of pregnancy bill and Malawi is just not trying to hear it, despite the fact that we lose about 200,000 women every year to unsafe abortions. Also, you know, other rights around sexual reproductive health and , sexual identity included. So we are always ready to stand behind any kinds of injustice because people are not single issues. We are multi issues. So now that you know that I'm an angry black woman and I come from, you know, an entire tribe of angry black women, this should explain why I'm so passionate about protecting the natural resources of my country. So check this out. What you don't know about Malawi is that it is actually the principal transit hub for the illegal wildlife trade in this part of Africa. So in tiny Malawi we have very porous borders. So porous that what porous means basically is that we don't have very well, um, border security is poor. You guys are in Australia. We've seen the TV shows. Border security is real! So, Malawi is a principle transit hub for the illegal wildlife trade, and that's especially organized by criminal syndicates that are trafficking ivory, where the trade is going to is mainly Asia. Asia is the biggest market for IWT products. So we've had situations where we track products, And so we know that, you know, products that we may find here in Malawi often come from as far away as places in East Africa or West Africa , because they're tagged, they're geotagged , and, uh, we've had ivory and other pieces of wildlife products turn up in Australia, in Malaysia. It's pretty incredible. So Malawi is the tiny country that is , located between these two, three other bigger countries that have huge wildlife populations. We have a small wildlife population. It's increasing of course, because we have a strategy to increase our wildlife now with African partners and other partners. But yeah, so criminal syndicates find it very convenient that Malawi is this very sort of safe, easy to get to country and bring in IWT products from Tanzania, Zambia, the Congo, and so forth, and they're able to ship this out, or they have tried to be able to ship this out by road and by plane. Then it goes on the ships from Mozambique, all across everywhere. So Malawi's actually linked to one of the biggest seizures of all time. So there were 6.9 tonnes of elephant ivory shipped from Lilongwe and seized in Singapore. I think it was 2005 or 2006. And almost three tons were also seized in Mzuzu in the north of Malawi. To my shame, that's where I'm from, up there in the north in 2013. But to my pride, because we, you know, we captured that. Just on the aside, what happened with that ivory and other ivory that we seized in Mzuzu was that the government, through our persuasion, decided to do an ivory burn like Kenya had done. You know, get all the tusks together and burn it because there is no profit to be gained from trading the ivory or reproducing it into something else, it would make a big statement. And so it was agreed that Malawi would have a big ivory burn. And we did. We created the pier at Parliament Building, and it was, it was a really, it was really huge. The president was going to attend, He was going to light the fire. The, the previous day we'd, you know, had a lot of activities around this and around eight o'clock in the evening before the burn, we received a phone call saying that the burn has been called off. Ahhh, yes. And the present is holding a press briefing as you speak, explaining why Malawi is not going to burn. So it was really disappointing for us. We had to go ahead the next day to this activity where we did not burn the ivory. The pier was still there. The president spoke that we would keep this ivory, and keep it safe and ensure would never end up in the hands of criminals. In the end, a couple of years later, yes, the ivory was destroyed, but it wasn't by fire. No, it did not end up in anybody's pockets, it was destroyed, but the symbolism of the fire would've been really huge for us. We would've really wanted that to happen.  How do we do what we do? Well, we have a multi-agency collaboration. We realized a long time ago, and I, when I say we, the organization I was working directly with at that time was the Lilongwe Wildlife Trust. We realized that in the fight against trafficking, we needed to have a very close relationship with the partners that were struggling to keep the borders closed, um, to prosecute cases because of lack of funding and so forth. So we created a partnership of, of multi agencies. We have a legislative program. Okay. So we advocate for policy reforms because they were dropping really small sentences on, on offenders, and we needed to have bigger sentences that would make people, you know, fear. And we have also funded, uh, intelligence led investigations because there's a lot of intimidation that occurs, and so a lot of investigations have to happen very secretly. And in order for them to be able to do that, they need to be funded. So some of the things I'm gonna be able to tell you are gonna sound like I'm not telling you the whole story because some of the cases and investigations are ongoing and the way we do things cannot be revealed to all. But I'm gonna try and tell you as much as we can do. So, we are also very heavily involved with the anti-corruption bureau. We have a great relationship with them. Because of the money laundering component of organized crime in IWT, and we do a lot of work in advocacy. So we work with the anti-corruption bureau, we work with the prosecution service, we work with the police, and we work a lot with development partners. So this interagency collaboration over the last three years, only four years, only has led to an increase in the efficacy of the way we deal with wildlife crime. Please know that I am coming from the media and advocacy side of this relationship, so I'm not an expert. Prosecution's rose dramatically. We went from seven prosecutions , several arrests, but only seven successful prosecutions in 2017, to 83 in 2020. That is enormous. In 2021 we had 27 prosecutions and we have ongoing cases which are continuing now. So you know, the success rate is absolutely phenomenal. So Malawi has done a really incredible job of moving the dial. The data that I'm talking about is actually related to pangolin arrests. So we've gone from Malawi being a country that has this incredible animal, this mammal that , most people didn't even know existed because that is the extent of degradation of wildlife spaces in Malawi, to Malawi's being very, very proud of and very protective of the pangolin. So as you can see, we've had a tenfold, more than tenfold increase in prosecutions because of the public involvement in, in telling the police when they suspect that a crime may be occurring or has occurred. It's really a major step. Another thing that's gone really, really well is that we've been able to get the law changed and sentences are now stiffer. So there were no custodial sentences almost. People would get fined, but they wouldn't go to prison. But now we have new laws that can send you to prison for up to 18 years. So we're being very, very tough on wildlife crime. The urban area is where people who are less knowledgeable about activities that occur in park related situations. So people around the park are very well versed in issues around wildlife protection, but people in urban areas are disconnected from that, and they're only just learning about how important , these kind of natural resources are. So getting the president and the cabinet, the ambassadors to talk about this at a national and international feeling level was a very huge win for us. Brought a lot of attention to us. So, as I said, I work in the media side of this, right, and the advocacy side of this. So we had the biggest bust ever, which we, we call the Lin-Zhang Syndicate. This was an international group of Asian and Malawian based smuggling ring of wildlife products. And this occurred here in Malawi and it made the headlines, it took an investigation of many, many, many months. In Malawi, corruption is really high. So we use the media to keep the cases in the public eye and if they're in the public eye, it's more helpful to help us keep it in the court system also. But we are very proud that the Nation newspaper was with us and decided to go ahead. London Times also carried the story. We had our investigative offices working on this from a tip of somebody who worked in their household, who told somebody who told somebody else, and then an investigation begun. So this undercover team followed the family around, and built up a case over a period of time and eventually arrested the entire family. But they were released very soon after on a technicality. And so we had to rebuild the case again, and when we arrested the head of the syndicate the second time around, he was given bail and he skipped bail. And four months later he was rearrested when he was trying to leave the country off, across, off one of the poorest borders where we were in action. So we managed to get him and then we arrested him and then the rest of the family. So it was really quite a dramatic, long, drawn out situation. So when the Times newspaper of the UK broke this story, it gave us a lot of international attention. We got quite a lot of interest from people who and organizations who wanted to support our work , who wanted to understand the issues, support government prosecutions, and so this was really, really good. That's the importance of media visibility to, to issues like this. So that was story one, the story of the Lin-Zhang syndicates and you know, the work that we, we did with the, of the agencies to bring these people down. We thought that by this bust we would pretty much have knocked a big chink into the international syndicate's work around Southern Africa and in Asia. There is continuing investigations with the links that they have in other parts of this country and outside. So it isn't something that we feel like has ended. It's not like a movie where, you know, you have a case, people go to jail and it's over. In real life, the tentacles of a syndicate are very pernicious and they're long and entangled and it takes a long time, and a long and ongoing work to continue to do this. I wanted to tell you also the story of the social media side of media and advocacy. So we realize that not everybody's paying attention to the press, and we are really trying to talk to the urban audience about, you know, the importance of protecting our natural resources. And so we're resorted to social media of course, because, you know, there's so many urbanites living on social media. And one of the first things we did was use a bit of a shock tactic. We took some journalists at the airports to get them to meet the wildlife dog detection unit. These dogs are really beautiful Israeli trained dogs. And we have this wonderful experience where , the journalists watched the dogs. This is Nikita, she's from the canine unit, and she's sniffing out the luggage. And she finds that a piece of contraband in that bag. So what we had done actually was to ask two of the journalists, to carry pieces of contraband in their luggage, in their bags at the airport and be part of this demonstration. So the other journalist did not know that they were part of this demonstration. So the female journalist whose bag that was found with an ivory trophy and she was arrested. At the site, it was all, you know, on video, the news, Cause we had all the media there, It was all the news people and the print people and photographers and we posted on social media.  We were careful in the language that we used around her arrest, but it was all just a stunt to get people talking about this. So this is her being told by the head of the police unit that she's being arrested for having had this piece of ivory in her bag. I thought that the journalists would cotton onto the fact that this is all staged. But they didn't. No, it was for two hours, a media furore on social media with phone calls from high level people trying to figure out how to help the journalist you know, get out of this arrest. And then, you know, we told everybody that no, this was just a demonstration. And that is how we broke Malawi into having conversations on social media. So now you find so many conversations on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, which are two of Malawi's favorite social media platforms, about protection for pangolins and ivory and trafficking, including flora. So, you know, we have protected species here, protected trees, and people having these conversations. One of my favorites that I saw was, "Show no mercy to your enemies. Send a pangolin into their yard and call the police." So people know how serious it is to mess with pangolins. The power of social media for good. It can be really amazing. So, I live by the words in the work that I do of Sir David Attenborough. He said that 'Saving our planet is a communications challenge'. It really is, because storytelling is one of those powerful ways that you can transform people's hearts and then people's minds, because when you touch people's hearts, people feel compelled to appreciate your situation. They find commonality in what you are experiencing or what is happening and how it resonates with them personally, and that begins to open their minds to what needs to be done. Also, we find, obviously with storytelling, when people connect, there is more respect. There is trust. And so being a person who works in this space and as an advocate's advocate, if you like, and as a socialite, I think people understand that I, you know, I, I jump onto and I follow and champion issues of worth. When I'm putting myself now out in front of conservation issues, people believe what I have to say. So I take that with a lot of responsibility. So when these conversations are being had on Twitter or, or Facebook or people are messaging me to say, Oh, I have a tip, cuz they do, I tell them what they need to do and I pass this information on. I've seen that, you know, social media can be an awesome asset for us here in Malawi in terms of protecting and safeguarding and also litigating for wildlife crime. We don't just work in the wildlife space. Conservation is so many issues, yeah? Cause we are not, it's not a single issue situation. We also have a lot of work around forestry crime. So it's wildlife is forestry crime. Forestry crime is wildlife crime. It's biodiversity protection that we do. So we have a very big challenge in Malawi because the rate of deforestation is honestly heartbreaking. We lose over 10,000 trees a day in Malawi. This is untenable, this country is so small. And this is largely because of making charcoal, and charcoal is used for cooking in Malawi. So last year, in January, like a year ago, literally, there was an investigative journalist who had nothing to do with us. We got involved with him after he broke the story. So proud of him. I just wanna give him all his flowers. Cause this was just him and his and the newspaper. They had an expose about charcoal smuggling, illegal smuggling, and they put this out in the paper about the police officers that were involved in allowing these trucks that passed through. And by the 5th of February, Department of Forestry had responded to the paper and our Malawi parliamentarian's Caucus on Conservation had gotten involved. Now we work very closely with the Caucus for Natural Resources in Parliament and the Hon Chilenga who's a champion for this is so awesome. So they get on board and they begin pushing for answers from the government and the authorities as to how police keep allowing truckloads of charcoal to pass through barriers that are supposed to be preventative.  Because this story broke last January, we were compelled, together with a Malawian parliamentarians committee to do a lot of research in the corruption space of forestry crime and the charcoal trade. And we in July of last year launched the corruption review report. So the corruption report that you can find on our website, www.icon.mw, the role of corruption in wildlife and forestry crime in Malawi. This is a very comprehensive study undertaking over several months, with our interagency relationships, plus others to look at the issues around corruption and how to tackle them. We launched this report with great pomp and ceremony in July. And it has been a tool that is being used by other organizations to create programs and reports and actions and fight the corruption. A year later another story, this one we're aware of, about how corruption is endemic in the police service at the top levels. It has been difficult to expose such stories, but now because of the corruption report and all the stories that have been coming out over the last year since the first one broke last January, the media is really at the forefront of putting pressure on the government, exposing high level individuals who are involved in forestry and in wildlife crime. So this, this is a case that is now in under investigation of a very senior police officer who used authority to allow , timber and um, charcoal trucks to pass through police borders, police checkpoints, when they're supposed to have been impounded, he got them released and so forth. There's also a minister that's implicated in the other story that you've got on here, Politicians compromise projects, forest protection work, and also an officer in the forestry service who's involved in the same. So there's lots of cases going on. So we are very proud of the work that we do. And the very last story is the story of, you know, David and Goliath, really. The Lilongwe ecological corridor is the city of the long ways plan to protect the spaces around the two intersecting rivers in Lilongwe City. Lilongwe City was planned, not very long ago, just about 40 years ago. It's very young city, but it has grown very, very fast. And because of the issues of corruption, it has grown outside of the plan, shall we say. A lot of buildings and spaces, buildings have been put in places they shouldn't be. There's a lot of encroachment and the places that are supposed to be protected spaces and nature spaces and sanctuaries in the city have suffered for this. So Lilongwe City has a plan to set up an ecological corridor in five zones, and I'm the chairperson of this corridor. I run this committee for the city, which involves various stakeholders. And the point of this is to protect the existing biodiversity, to recreate and bring back the lost flora and fauna and to ensure that future construction, future programs in these spaces fits the standards of the ecological corridor ethos. This is not easy. It is the capital city. There are a lot of political interests involved. So that's some of the work that we do here in Malawi in our fight to protect our very important spaces. Our President is very much in the forefront of supporting a lot of programs around protecting biodiversity, the environment, and he has concerns for climate change, and he has repeatedly said so. And that we stand and we hold him to always when he steps a little bit maybe outta line, his very first maiden speech, these are the words he said. "As a nation, we cannot keep our date with destiny without settling our date with nature, saving our natural environment, and saving the only home God gave us to live on this earth." That's our president. Kirsty: Thank you so much Zilanie, for generously sharing these stories of the power of communities to effect change. And that's a key takeaway for me, Ari, and it's really relevant to this series of inspiring speakers, that reminder that an individual with passion can build resonance with others, and that inspires them to take action, and that's how movements build and change takes place. That real power of the individual. And also Zilanie's stories, I feel, show how incredibly powerful is that role of connectors and communicators in this sort of community space. Ariadne: Mm. Yeah, thanks Kirsty. I think a few things that really resonated for me, and I heard as Zilanie was talking, was how important it is to surface these hidden issues, and how the media can be used as a leverage point to kind of catalyze political support and action by being able to raise these issues through the media, which catches the attention of key political leaders who are then required to act on what's being published in the media. The other point that I think is really important is that bold and catalytic change is led by individuals and activists like Zilanie and this often comes with great personal risk and danger, and it really, for me, brings us back to the importance of drawing out the collective voice and having networks like Ampliseed so that change leaders can share their stories and access the support of their peers. Kirsty: And that's actually a pretty fortuitous segue, because in our next episode, we are delighted to have Shawn Callahan, who is a storytelling specialist, sharing his techniques and tips on how to tell better stories that stick. So, thank you for your time and attention today. We'd like to close with the special thank you to the BHP Foundation, whose support makes this work possible. And if you're interested in hearing more inspiring stories with us, please do subscribe to the Ampliseed podcast series or head over to our website to learn more.

Yarning Time - How to create a culturally safe workspace with Sam Murray The Ampliseed Podcast: Inspiring Stories, Episode 3       This is the third episode in Ampliseed’s Inspiring Stories series— interviews with leaders who inspire us on our pathway to an equitable and nature positive future, who share with us what brought them to this space, which opportunities inspired them, and what challenges they had to overcome.  Jump to: On this episode | About the guests | Show notes | Transcript ON THIS EPISODE OF INSPIRING STORIES How do we build culturally safe workplaces? Samantha Murray from the Indigenous Desert Alliance knows first hand how working in the city can be a daunting prospect for Aboriginal people who have grown up in remote desert communities. In this episode, Sam shares strategies on how organisations and companies can create culturally safe environments where First Nations people can feel spiritually, socially and emotionally safe.     ABOUT TODAY'S GUESTS Sam Murray (Invited Guest) Samantha Murray is Deputy CEO of the Indigenous Desert Alliance (IDA). Sam is a proud Yilka/Wongutha/Nyoongar woman who grew up in Cosmo Newberry (where she has traditional owner links) and Laverton. She is a currently a director of Yilka Heritage and Land Care, and has also worked with Central Desert Native Title Services and Desert Support Services as a human resources officer. She has also worked in a range of other government-based roles in education, public housing and TAFE. Sam is based on the Whadjuk Nyoongar lands of Perth. Ariadne Gorring (co-Host) Ariadne is the co-CEO of Pollination Foundation. Ariadne is passionate about Indigenous-led cultural conservation, working with the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) for over 20 years on native title and cultural and natural resource management. She is a former Atlantic Fellow for Social Equity at Melbourne University, and recipient of the Barbara Thomas Fellowship in Conservation Financing via The Nature Conservancy Australia. Ariadne is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne. Kirsty Galloway McLean (co-Host) Kirsty leads Ampliseed, a global network connecting practitioners with a rights-based, human-centered approach to building environmental resilience. Her background includes over a decade with the United Nations working in Canada and Japan, and 15 years as CEO of a management and communications consulting firm in Australia. As Executive Director at Pollination Foundation, she works to connect and support international organisations, philanthropists, business, Indigenous and community leaders, and other corporate foundations to drive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Kirsty is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne.   SHOW NOTES This interview was originally recorded in 2021.  Additional resources Map: To find out more about what Sam and IDA are up to today, please check out the Indigenous Desert Alliance website https://www.indigenousdesertalliance.com/, and follow them on social media.  Facebook: @indigenousdesertalliance | Tiktok: @indigenousdesertalliance | Twitter: @IDA_Australia |  LinkedIn: @indigenous-desert-alliance | YouTube: @indigenousdesertalliance   TRANSCRIPT Sam: Cultural safety is about trying to remove that very strong line. You know, trying to at least diminish that a little bit, so that person in the middle can feel like they can be themselves in both worlds: at home or country, and also in the corporate professional environment. ----more---- Ariadne: From Ampliseed and the Pollination Foundation, welcome to Inspiring Stories. This series makes space for conversations with leaders who inspire us on a pathway to an equitable and nature positive future. And it's important to see the world through different eyes and understand different perspectives, and that's what really excites us about this podcast. I'm Ariadne Gorring, co-CEO of Pollination Foundation, and we focus on bringing community to the heart of climate solutions. Kirsty: And I'm your co-host, Kirsty Galloway McLean. I lead Ampliseed, a peer-to-peer learning and doing network of landscape scale conservation projects around the world. Ariadne: Today's episode comes from a Zoom that we recorded in October, 2021 with the very generous Sam Murray, and a really gorgeous story in the preparation for bringing this together was that Sam and I realized that one of my first jobs out of high school was working on a mine site in a very remote part of Western Australia. And it just so happens that that mine site in the town, Cosmo Newberry, is where Sam grew up, and I spent a lot of my time when I was on the mine playing with the kids and we think that Sam was probably one of those kids that I spent time with. So a really beautiful point of connection to start us off today. Kirsty: Sam works at the Indigenous Desert Alliance and Sam's going to share with us today her experiences and insights on how to create culturally safe spaces that allow indigenous peoples and local communities to feel comfortable participating as their authentic selves. Because this was originally a Zoom presentation with slides, for podcast purposes, we've edited Sam's story to make it standalone for you to listen to wherever and whenever suits you best. So where Sam makes visual references to maps or photos, you'll find these in the episode notes. But without further ado, let's welcome Sam. Sam: This is actually the first time I've ever done this. So, yeah, thank you for coming on and letting me, have my first experience. Firstly, I'd like to speak some language, which is a mixture of Wangai and Ngaanyatjarra, where I'm from. Yuwa Nyagu yini Sam, Nyuku ngurda Yilka Noondina Pirni Walkumanu Bithanee Yinagardi Gulila - Nyahyu Wangka Pirni. So I'm saying, Hi, my name is Sam, my home is Yilka, and thank you for all coming and sitting and listening to me talk and have a yarn. And I've called it yarning time, which means for our mob in the Australian indigenous context is us sharing, talking, knowledge, so we are going to have a bit of a yarning time. I attended the Sydney Opening Olympic ceremony. I was one of the 300-odd indigenous central desert women that went to the Sydney Opening Olympics. So for a desert girl coming from Cosmo , traveling over to Sydney, first time ever, a lot of these women had never left their communities , but it was just an amazing invitation to suddenly go over to Sydney and dance and represent our culture. It was unique experience of being on a plane with like a hundred-odd desert women and some random families would be jumping on going, Wow, this is a different plane full of people that I was expecting so for me to maintain my cultural connectedness, I ring up quite a lot to my mob. I've got some family down here in Perth at the moment. So any opportunity I can, I speak language and, just keep that connection going. You know, Facebook, video calling, all of that stuff's important being away from home, to maintain cultural connection. My passion. So I work at Indigenous Desert Alliance. It was created as a kind of a one stops place for people out in the Central Desert, rangers looking after country, rangers out in the communities, out in the desert. But pretty much at the crux of it rangers are indigenous people, looking after their country and getting skilled up or being developed into looking after their country. So Indigenous Desert Alliance was created as a way to support the rangers out in the centre of Australia, the middle of WA, NT and South Australia, and it's a not-for-profit organization. And our whole core business is literally connecting rangers up together, supporting rangers to look after country their way. Australia's a very diverse country, the desert, so many different dialects, different groups, different languages, different ways looking after country. But the number one passion that we have as desert people is that we love looking after our country. It's a part of who we are. The state borders in the middle of Australia don't necessarily exist for mob. We have family running across all of the states. Those boundaries are recent boundaries. Back in the day, we'd wander around, you know, up to Northern Territory, South Australia, different areas, different states. So IDA likes to see ourselves that we cross those borders, that we support that natural sort of traveling around. And the reason I can work for IDA is, a couple of years ago being asked if I could help facilitate a TO session, a Traditional Owner session, which is something that I'd never known before. And what IDA had created through Lindsay Langford CEO was creating these sessions where it was just traditional owners having a yam. And I remember sitting in the room and suddenly, all of the non-indigenous people were asked to probably go and have a cup of tea, and probably leave the room, and let the traditional owners have a yarn. And I remember feeling like, Wow, I've never been somewhere where rangers were suddenly told that, you know, you have a whole space to talk and yarn with yourselves and then you can report back to the wider group. But it was about creating a really cultural, safe space for desert people to yarn in a cultural way. To get our priorities out. And I remember being really amazed by that. And you know, not long after actually ended up working with IDA and Lindsay and I having yarns about me coming over and, um, and it was just a natural fit for me being here.  I'm a director of my mob, my country, Yilka's country, of their Heritage Land Care Board. So I have worked to create our Rangers, Yilka Rangers, which have only been around for two years, so it's just a natural fit for me here at IDA and I love it. So coming from a community girl to small town and then moving to Perth and only being in Perth for four years, and it's the biggest city I've ever lived in. Working in a place that understands you and creates a space for you to be yourself is amazing. And so the office actually feels like another home for me, and I'm able to be my cultural self here a lot more. And that's important, especially if you're working with indigenous people around the world about creating that cultural safe space. So just before the cultural safety part, I just wanna talk about adapting. So, in other words, you might have heard the term shape shifting or code switching. Aboriginal people, and especially in Australia, we're very aware that we have to kind of fit into mainstream society, or at least try and adapt into it. For some indigenous people that can be quite hard to adapt and to code switch into different worlds and some struggle with doing that, and some do that very, very well.  I remember a story working in my last role, working the front with admin and speaking really good English. Adapting really, really well into the working environment. And we had some desert mob come to the front door and there were, some of them were a little bit, you know, had too much, um, 'red cordial' and, and they were a little bit full on to the receptionist, and I knew that they were from the same country that I was from. So, 12 hours away from Perth. So suddenly I've got up doing the gestures, rallying in language, telling him, Oh, you better go. You better go. And talking language and using my arms and quite culturally strong and it got the old feller out the door and settled him down. And I've come back and my coworkers who had worked with for like two years, were like, what was that? What just happened? You just turned into a completely different person. We didn't even know who you were. Who's that? I'm like, actually that's the real me. This the person that you think, like I, we just feel like we've just met a completely different person and, and I felt that it was actually a little bit to blame for myself because I'd code switched so well in an organization that mostly didn't have any Aboriginal people and one or two other Aboriginal people code switched so well, and I felt like I had to code switch so well that when they saw the real Sam in a way of my language and the way I moved and my behavior changed, they were actually completely surprised. It was a completely different person.  So after that I kind of, you know, opened up a bit more, had those conversations with them about creating a safe space so that people could be more themselves. So I think that perspective of understanding that indigenous people, around the world, if we're aware that there's such a mainstream majority environment, we've learned how to, or tried to learn to adapt and code switch in that space. And cultural safety is about trying to remove that very strong line. You know, trying to at least diminish that a little bit so that person in the middle can feel like they can be themselves in both worlds at home and on country, and also in the corporate professional environment. And I think , that's a beautiful thing. I remember having these conversations coming into IDA and telling Lindsay, Look, I'm a single mum of two girls. I'm a director of my country. I gotta go back home. I've gotta drive out to Cosmo 12 hours away or fly out quarterly to go do director stuff. I've gotta go out and do cultural business. This is me. Are you willing to take me on? And Lindsay's like, That's who you are, Sam. That is exactly who you are. And we will accept, we need to accept who you are. Make all of those accommodations, those things come first before this. And that just creates a passion and an energy that I'm not spending trying to separate between two different worlds. That line no longer exists for me where I work now, which is amazing. So my energy for IDA and my family and my tribe is equally spread out, and I think that's an amazing place to be at. And I think it's important to just think about those perspectives for an indigenous person that you work with, that you share office space with, that you do projects with. Which leads us to what cultural safety is. Cultural safety means an environment which is spiritually, socially, and emotionally safe. So what that means is I feel culturally safe that I can be myself. And we'll have a little yarn about ways you could do that in your projects and working environment. It's good to recognize that perspective that the way we view the world, is important. So for me, these are just some things that I've talked about, what good cultural safety looks like here at IDA. So for me, because I feel so culturally safe, I very much speak more language here. The first time I'm nearly 40 that I feel like I can just talk my language in this office. Some of these times the coworkers here have to tell me that I'm actually speaking too much language. I need to start telling them what I'm speaking so they can come along in the conversation with me. So that's how far it's probably, I'm maybe feeling too culturally safe at IDA, but I get to speak my language. I get to talk, I'll talk about my country. I will send out regular emails about , you know, dream time stories and about, uh, funeral practices, and I'll bring coworkers along because I feel that my knowledge and who I am is respected and actually people are interested to wanting to know that. So feeling comfortable, that's what good cultural safety is. Something that we do at IDA is, um, the, the indigenous word for spirit is Goordi, and before all of our staff meetings, we do a five minute Goordi check, which is checking in on your spirit. And the concept is, um, the whole thing of mob when we sit around a fire together and we are sharing space, and that doesn't mean we're necessary talking, but we're sharing space around a fire. And with just being with each other. For me, the Goordi check in a staff setting was us going around the room just checking on how we're traveling.  If you are, you know, feeling tired or if you are happy or feeling productive, you're excited about stuff that's up and coming. But it's not a space to respond to that. It's literally a safe space to just say how you're feeling. So just going around the room, doing a check in to say, how we're going, but it's all about creating that bond as a staff. That we're one mob, that we're one tribe, and, and creating a bit of a safe space for everyone really, but without any needing to respond. So that's something we do at every staff meeting and, things like, we make sure that all of our offices have photos and paintings of country that we are from. So that any indigenous person from the desert space that we work with, when they walk in the door, they automatically maybe see a photo that they know, or a country that they understand or a painting that they know the person that's painted it. When you walk into the building and you see people that look like you, when you see country that you know, you automatically feel your Goordi, your spirit feels a lot more welcomed. So we've spent a lot of time, I've spent a lot of time in IDA office with Shelly our comms going through photos, different country, make sure everything that we have in this place of indigenous source comes from country that we work with, that every staff member in the office here can talk to every single painting and every single photo and tell them where it's from. So we work really hard at creating a safe space for our Desert Rangers when they come into the city. How we can create it? So some ways that you can create it within your project or within your staff is if you have good relationships with indigenous staff members without putting pressure on them, but are creating the safe space that if they would like to step forward and work with you to create a culturally safe environment for themselves and local mob. The same if you are working with indigenous people and projects. Having that conversation with your indigenous coworkers, if they are comfortable and if they don't feel pressured, they would like to share. And you'll create a safe space where they can talk about ways of making a project or the workspace that they're in culturally safe and if they do want to step in that space and do that leading, that's fantastic. If they don't, there's other ways you can create it, by creating a community way into the organization. With some really good community engagement, having a group of the community to say, How can we make this place? How can we make this project more comfortable and more yours? Tell us in a safe place, in a safe space, how we can make this work, this organization and this project feel like something that you belong to and own. And just even the fact that you're asked a question in a really respectful, safe way would make the people that you are working with go, Wow, these guys are listening and they want our input to make it ours. That's fantastic. There's also really great consulting indigenous people that work around that may already be in this profession where they're offering ways, they come into organizational projects to create safe spaces. Organizations, especially ones that work in our space, in the desert space, some of them will make it compulsory to have really good cultural awareness training, and if they work with the community and say to the community, and if it's organizations that are just starting that road, Hey, we really wanna engage with you and connect with you the right way. Can you come in and do cultural awareness with our staff? Can we make this a formalized thing? I always encourage that organizations should have it as part of their strategic plan, as part of induction for new staff. So that's where the local indigenous group or community would come in and then present good cultural training to new staff and talk to them. So before they go out on country, they have to go through a cultural awareness training, so that they feel a bit more comfortable going out there. So those small things aren't missed.  I always suggest to people to go to local community events and groups. So say to staff, go to like National Australian Indigenous Day of Celebration, or NAIDOC week. Go to local communities, special events, go to those free community events and just immerse yourself in the community that you're working with in a non-professional sense, and just observing and, and being around the community in a non-professional sense. You also get a good picture of people in maybe a very culturally safe space. And you get to see that. I say to people, if you're gonna go anywhere in a community or project, especially with desert mob, mirror someone who's around about the same age as you. So we're taught to, fill space and keep talking and yarning, but desert Mob, we hold silence really well. We'll sit around a fire, we'll not talk for hours, but we are still together. And I often say to people that could come out to the community, you know, a good hot tip is to put your eyes on someone who's the same age as you, same gender, and you know, you mirror those behaviors, the way that someone maybe talks to you. Indigenous person steps back because you may be in their space. You, you know, you hold your ground. I've been out with very eager and excited lawyers out on community and they're very excited to be on country and they want to be close to indigenous people. It's sometimes a little bit too close. And so suddenly you see this very excited lawyer going in closely to the indigenous person, and indigenous person going, Whoa. And they're stepping back and the person's going in, and then that indigenous person talking less and that person talking more to fill the space. And so I'm like, No, no, no, no. You've gotta mirror how they're behaving because that's what feels comfortable with them, and you mirror that. So in some ways it's about even changing the behaviors that you are used to. And recognizing that if you want to connect with another person who's a little bit different from you, maybe you need to adopt what they're doing in a little way. You know, not never mimic or try and speak like them, but behavior. Just as human beings, we connect with each other when we feel comfortable, when we mirror each other. So, I said to that young girl, I know you're really excited. I really get it. I think they really get you're really excited to be here as well. But if you wanna connect with them, maybe, you know, you be excited and, and you know, don't try and ask too many questions. You know, create a safe space again, back to create a culturally safe space so that they can fill it with stuff they wanna tell you, they can fill it with themselves, and then you get to bond that way. And that's the first start. Because once you feel culturally safe and welcomed and you're acknowledged and respected going forward in terms of community engagement and projects, and working relationships is just a natural flow on from there. And that tends to be missed sometimes, that creating that cultural safe space. Suddenly there's an assumption that community engagement just naturally happen, but you really need that trust first. I'm constantly yarning with mob that come in and say, you know, You know, do you feel okay? You feel valued, you feel right here, your Goordi feels good here? Or do you, you know, do you want something different or do you want something that even all of our books and our resources, so even basic things like magazines in the front foyer of your organization, um, all of our bookshelves are stopped with purely only stuff that are related to our desert. Stuff that's helpful. So if any visitor that walks into IDA and they go to our coffee table, they go to our bookshelf, or they get a book from Lindsay's room, they're all part of who we are. And this is that whole branding. You're branding the organization. So, you know, thinking about those things, what type of merchandise you have around, what type of books you have, so, you're hinting not only people that are coming in, external stakeholders, but also indigenous people coming in, going, Wow, these guys really know our mob, they really understand where we're from. The front office is the person that greets all the people that you deal with, are they culturally trained? Do they understand the language? Do they understand the protocols of behavior? Do they understand the concept of shame? The way indigenous people can get quite shamed or shy? It's important. So that front desk person is actually the most important person in the building actually before anything, anyone else. And the community engagement officer, who's the first person that makes contact with indigenous groups is the most important person, and they should be totally trained up and supported in understanding the people that they're working with. They should be reaching out and talking to the people that maybe have a lot of long term experience with the groups that you're working with. They should be knowledgeable. They should be the go-to person. This is the front secretary who might be a junior admin who's only 18 years old, or they're highly experienced community engagement lawyer that's going out for environmental projects. They should be the most qualified person in the organization because they are the first person that indigenous people see. And that gets forgotten. You could have the most highly qualified person go out, but if they don't know the mob that they're talking to, they haven't done their homework, they haven't understood about behavior, cultural behaviors or how we interact. Small things like culturally staring at someone, looking them in the eye quite a long time is something that's not appropriate for me when I go back to community. When I go to remote community like Warburton or Kirra Kirra and I'm engaging with Desert Mob, that way I'm not looking at them in the eye because culturally that means a sign of disrespect. But obviously in mainstream Australia, looking someone in their eyes is a show of respect for them. But for me, the more I avert my eyes is showing them respect. The way we shake hands. Uh, if it's mourning or for respect, it's a very light handshake because that's a show of respect for mourning. But again, mainstream Australia, you hear the saying "firm or strong handshake"? Oh, I often hear people say, Oh, if a guy doesn't shake my hand in a strong way. He's a guy I can't trust. Now Aboriginal people don't do that. That's the opposite. We have very gentle handshakes as a sign of respect. Try and engage from the way of the indigenous perspective and you'll get a lot further along. And also you show respect to mob when it's done genuinely with intent, that you've made the effort to understand our viewpoint. And that means a lot. You earn a lot of respect. We had a session, a workshop session, here actually it was here in Perth and we brought in , ranger groups. So it was quite a mixed bag, different groups from WA coming together for two-way science and, we had a brand new ranger coordinator who started very respectful guy. Second day on the job , and he happened to come to our workshop and, every time he got up and spoke, very respectful, he kept saying, um, as, as a white man, I'd like to say this, where as a white fellow, I'd like to say this. So every time he spoke, he'd he say it at the beginning of that. And then I had my Auntie Daisy call me aside at the end of the day or halfway through the day. She's like, " that man who that keep talking all the time. Why are he gotta keep saying he's a white fella? We can see his face. He got a white face and she kept saying, Is he telling us that because he think we can't see, Like I, I, I don't got my glasses on, but can you tell him, we can see that he got a white face. We can see that". And for her and for the old ladies that were there, they couldn't understand why a non-indigenous person was standing up and constantly saying that he was a white fella. From his perspective, he was trying to be respectful and acknowledge that maybe this is a space that he feels privileged to be a part of. So his way of being respectful, showing, you know, as a white fellow, I come from this perspective and I, you know, feel like I need to be respectful. So it's very funny and I actually had to go and tell the guy that was speaking Look, hey, I know, I know that you're trying to be respectful and, and honor that space that you're in, but these ladies just wanna let you know that they know that you are a white man. They get it. They, they get it. They want us tell you that they've seen it. So maybe just don't say it as much every time. What I say to people, especially in our space, professional and personal lines aren't as strongly defined with indigenous mob. When we see a coworker or a person from an organization come out to community , it's important to sort of connect with indigenous people in the personal level. So for me, I always say to our coworkers you know, yarn about if you are the oldest person in your family, yarn about if you're a grandfather, talk about what country you've come from, where you grew up. Because for indigenous people, that's how they can connect with you. They can recognize, Oh, he's a grandfather like me. I can relate to him in this way because it's very important for desert Mob to know where you fit in in our social network because that dictates how we behave to you, how we interact with you, whether or not we just need to look after you, whether or not we need to get someone else look after you, what level, status and respect you'd have in the community based on where you are in your family network. So, It might seem uncomfortable for some of co of workers that go out to the desert space suddenly, you know, having to open up about their personal life, about, whether or not they're a mother of two kids, or whether not they're a grandmother, but it's very important because for indigenous people, we need to know how to relate with you. We need to know where to put you into our social network. We need to know whether or not you're a sister or an auntie that we need to respect and, and sharing about where you grew up. If you grew up around the ocean somewhere in England or wherever, and then someone who lives near the ocean in Australia, they're like, Oh, he's an ocean man like me. We grew up near the ocean and there's a natural bond there already. So we need to find a connection to you. And the only way we can do that is finding how we connect with you as a person. And then from there you can start the work that you're meant to do with us. And then from there you build the relationship, and then obviously the project goals become more successful. And this is where creating that space is really important because, it will be filled if Aboriginal people or indigenous people feel that the safe space has been created. We're respected. We will fill it, we will step into that space. We will be more ourselves. Um, and then you will get that real connection and a real relationship building to happen, which is what we need in this space with environmental projects and indigenous land management. It's important because we all equally want to look after the environment. It's important for everyone. But that's where it's got to happen because it is a different worldview and different perspective. Ariadne: What a wonderful story from Sam. She's shared so generously with us, and I really love this story, that she told about the fella that went into the community and being so enthusiastic and wanting to help and show respect by sharing his observations from his own lived experience and how important it is for us to be mindful of what we bring to the spaces. And how our own perspectives and world views are not always shared by others. And then when we're in community, it's so important to observe and listen for cultural cues, and we really need to be mindful of what others need to feel spiritually, culturally, and emotionally safe. What others need and what we need is not always the same. And understanding and celebrating these differences is what's gonna enable us to be able to really collaborate well together. Kirsty: Yeah, that really resonated with me too. I know for myself, I always have to be really careful about how much space I leave in a conversation. I grew up in a culture that showed enthusiasm and interest in a conversation by leaving a really short gap, jumping in, and almost talking over the top of each other, showed that you were really passionate and enthused by the conversation you were having with someone. But so many communities, particularly indigenous communities, leave that space between people speaking because that shows that you're thinking deeply about what they're saying and how respectful you are and you just have to remember that sometimes you're trying to say something and that's not necessarily what the other people hear. So that point that you're making about being really mindful of cultural cues is so, so important when you're in community. One of the other things that Sam said that really resonated with me, was her point about if a person doesn't have to spend time splitting their energy between being two different types of people, that gives them more energy to put into home and work as well. And that's a huge benefit for the person, but also the workplace as well. Because there are so many studies that show us the increasing workplace diversity is really important in lots of different ways. Companies with diversity and management have better financial returns. Teams with diversity are shown to think smarter, because their discussions challenge stale thinking, and it forces the people in the group to process information more carefully, and that ends up sharpening their performance. But people really do need to feel culturally safe in order to be able to give those authentically diverse viewpoints. And just one last observation that I'd add is that, It's important to think not only about what's in your workplace when you're trying to make it culturally safe, but also to reflect on what might be missing. So you can look around and say, Do I have local artwork? Do I have indigenous publications? But you might also start to think about, do I actually hear the indigenous people in my workplace use their language? Maybe that's something that's missing, and maybe that is something you can think about. Is my space really as safe and welcoming as I think it is? Ariadne: Thank you for your time and attention today. If you're interested in hearing more inspiring stories with us, we'd love to have you. So please do subscribe to the Ampliseed podcast series, or head over to our website to learn more. We'd like to close with a special thank you to the BHP Foundation whose support makes this work possible. And for our next episode, we will share Zilanie's story. Zilanie is a wildlife crime warrior in Malawi who will share with us her experiences in building a community and a movement towards a just and sustainable future.

The Importance of Cultural Safety with Janine Mohamed The Ampliseed Podcast: Inspiring Stories, Episode 2       This is the second episode in Ampliseed’s Inspiring Stories series— interviews with leaders who inspire us on our pathway to an equitable and nature positive future, who share with us what brought them to this space, which opportunities inspired them, and what challenges they had to overcome. Jump to: On this episode | About the guests | Show notes | Transcript ON THIS EPISODE OF INSPIRING STORIES "We can only ever travel at the speed of trust, and trust takes time". This second episode of our Inspiring Stories podcast brings you a powerful story of lived experience from Dr Janine Mohamed. Janine is a Narrunga Kaurna woman and the Chief Executive of the Lowitja Institute. In this podcast she takes listeners on a journey of Australian history through the very personal, moving lens of her own family’s history.   ABOUT TODAY'S GUESTS Janine Mohamed (Invited Guest) Dr Janine Mohamed is the CEO of The Lowitja Institute – Australia’s National Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research. She was recently awarded an Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity Fellowship in 2019, a Doctorate of Nursing honoris causa by Edith Cowan University in January 2020, and a Distinguished Fellowship by The George Institute for Global Health Australia in 2021. Janine is based on Wurundjeri Country in Melbourne. Ariadne Gorring (co-Host) Ariadne is the co-CEO of Pollination Foundation. Ariadne is passionate about Indigenous-led cultural conservation, working with the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) for over 20 years on native title and cultural and natural resource management. She is a former Atlantic Fellow for Social Equity at Melbourne University, and recipient of the Barbara Thomas Fellowship in Conservation Financing via The Nature Conservancy Australia. Ariadne is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne. Kirsty Galloway McLean (co-Host) Kirsty leads Ampliseed, a global network connecting practitioners with a rights-based, human-centered approach to building environmental resilience. Her background includes over a decade with the United Nations working in Canada and Japan, and 15 years as CEO of a management and communications consulting firm in Australia. As Executive Director at Pollination Foundation, she works to connect and support international organisations, philanthropists, business, Indigenous and community leaders, and other corporate foundations to drive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Kirsty is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne.   SHOW NOTES This interview was originally recorded in 2020. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that the following program contains a reference to an Elder who is sadly no longer with us.  Additional resources Materials referenced Movie: Rabbit Proof-Fence (a 2002 film based on the 1996 book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilikington Garimara). Book: Dark Emu by Bruce PascoeBook: Talkin' Up to the White Woman by Aileen Moreton-Robinson  To find out more about what Janine and the Lowitja Institute are up to today, please check out the Lowitja website https://www.lowitja.org.au/, and follow them on social media.  Facebook: @lowitjainstitute | Twitter: @lowitjainstitut | YouTube: @lowitjainstitute    TRANSCRIPT Janine: We can only ever travel at the speed of trust, and trust takes time. Being strong in my culture and my cultural identity really helped protect me from the slings and arrows of racism that I experienced when I ventured out into dominant culture spaces, like mainstream schools or health services, because when you come up against those slings, those things that people tell you about yourself, you'll know they're not true. ----more---- Ariadne: From Ampliseed and the Pollination Foundation, welcome to Inspiring Stories. This series makes space for conversations with leaders who inspire us on our pathway to an equitable and nature positive future. I'm Ariadne Gorring co-CEO of Pollination Foundation. And we focus on bringing community to the heart of climate solutions. Kirsty: And I'm your co-host Kirsty Galloway McLean. I lead Ampliseed, a peer-to-peer learning network of landscape scale conservation projects around the world. Ariadne: Today's episode comes from a Zoom recorded in October, 2020 with a dear friend, Dr. Janine Mohamed. As a Narrunga Kaurna woman from Point Pierce in South Australia, Janine's career in indigenous health has grounded her as a passionate advocate for cultural safety, women's empowerment and systems change. In her role as the CEO of the Lowitja Institute, the peak body for indigenous health research in Australia, Janine inspires indigenous women to be cultural advocates and leaders in their workplace. Kirsty: Before we start, just a quick housekeeping note - because this recording was originally a Zoom presentation with slides, for podcast purposes we've edited this inspiring story to make it standalone for you to listen to wherever and whenever suits you best. Links to videos and photographs that Janine refers to can be found in the episode notes. Welcome Janine. Janine: So good afternoon or good morning or good evening to all my international and Australian colleagues. I would like to begin by acknowledging the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, I'm on the Bunurong area of Naam. Naam is also known as Melbourne. So I live and work on these traditional lands, so I acknowledge elders past, present, and of course our future emerging generations for whom this work that you are all doing through Pollination's network is so important. This will be an Australian-centric presentation. So I encourage you to think about it in terms of indigenous peoples of your region, through the lens of historical truth-telling, the cultural determinants of health and the application of cultural safety in all of the environments that you get to live, work and operate in. My most recent role is the CEO of the Lowitja Institute here on Naam. We are Australia's national community controlled Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander health research organization. We're a community controlled organization working for the health and wellbeing of Australia's first people through high impact quality research. So we commission research. We certainly are leaders in knowledge translation, and supporting the next generation of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander health researchers through activities such as scholarships and commissioning of research. And we do lots of things with the Australian government in terms of our emerging indigenous research workforce. But before we go any further. I just want to reflect upon the importance of what Ari and I have both done, the acknowledgement of country that we all shared. This is an important Aboriginal protocol that enables us to acknowledge some very fundamental truths about this place we now call Australia. So acknowledgement of country reminds us first and foremost of the long standing and enduring connection that we as First Nations people have to our country. We've never ceeded that connection or our sovereignty, and another Australian context, we have no treaty here. So knowing that through colonization we've had cultural destruction, acknowledgement of country is an enacting of our cultural revitalization of our cultural determinants, which I'm gonna talk deeply about today. And of course our cultural continuity, our first nations peoples are a living, breathing, reality and a remarkable, extraordinary achievement of cultural continuity. So to exemplify that cultural continuity, imagine that I'm showing you a six meter tape. And this is representing our connection to this country of more than 60,000 years. So one meter equals 10,000 years. Now this is the important bit, the period since colonization would actually amount to only a tiny fraction of that tape and probably the space occupied by two fingers. And I'm gonna go into a little bit of a discussion about the destruction that happened within that space of those two fingers. So when I see signage or monuments, I'm often looking about who's being represented in our environment. And I encourage you to do that to actually walk around and see whose story's being told. When I see monuments and other acknowledgements of our achievement as the oldest living, continuing culture on earth, it's a personal reminder that historical truth telling can be a very powerful intervention. More often than not, what I see is monuments to the explorers or the people that discovered Australia and not monuments to my peoples and, because this truth for my people is really brutal and very untold. And if it's told in the Australian narrative, it's often through a non-indigenous lens and hopefully that's changing. So in Australia, our indigenous peoples make up 3% of the population, and we come from more than 250 language groups. So we make up 27% of Australia's incarceration rates. We're 3%, but we make up 27% of the incarceration rates. Our children make up 60% of the youth detention population nationally, but in the Northern Territory, we make up 100% of kids in juvenile justice and our life expectancy is 11 years shorter than that of non-indigenous Australians. I'm a proud Narrunga Kaurna woman from Point Pierce Aboriginal mission in South Australia and missions in Australia are really not dissimilar to reserves in Canada just to make that comparison. These missions were a part of Australia's past punitive policies, really to control the 'native pest'. And I saw firsthand from an early age, so much of the inequity in our health services. I was raised by my Nana, who had schizophrenia. So we had a lot of contact with the health system, and even though I couldn't name it, I could see from a young age that Nana was treated differently. And a lot of indigenous people online will probably agree with me that often, the first time that you feel racism or inequity, you feel it in your stomach, you can't verbalize what it is, but you can feel it. And she was treated differently. And when I say that, not in a good way. So, my Nana, who I called Mum, her name's Clarice Milera and she was born in 1934. Mum grew up in a fundamentalist Anglican mission, firstly, during the protection era and then the segregation era, which was marked by the white Australia policy. So the white Australia policy not only had a lot of impact on indigenous Australians, but it actually had a lot of impact on Australia not allowing people from overseas to settle here. So protectors, protection boards, and native affairs departments segregated and controlled a large part of the Aboriginal populations. Aboriginal people who survived the frontier conflicts, the massacres, the poisonings, the rapes, and the murders were moved on to reserves or missions. And just to go a bit deeper on that and to elaborate often who was moved onto these missions, were peoples of different language groups that wouldn't necessarily have traded together or even spoke the same language. So there was now a melting pot of indigenous peoples coming together on land that was often the most infertile land to be able to grow and harvest food. Mum also experienced the assimilationist era where children were forcibly taken from their families if they were light skin because they could be integrated into society. She was not allowed to speak her language or practice her culture or receive Aboriginal medicine. And if she got caught doing any of these things she was dealt with severe punishment. In short, she grew up experiencing and witnessing trauma from a very young age. And just on this slide here it's an advertisement, it's a real advertisement that happened in Australia. And tells you a story that's untold, which is the woman's written back and said "I like the little girl in the center of the group" and she's marked her with an X, "but if taken by anyone else, any of the others will do as long as they are strong." So there's often a notion that indigenous children were taken in and became a part of families. But in actual fact, they were often used as labor or as a friend for someone else's child. Yeah, so they weren't necessarily integrated into a family. She grew up being told by the dominant society that her identity as an Aboriginal girl, and then as an Aboriginal woman had no value. And my Mum loved her father very dearly. She grew up watching him under this oppressive system on the mission where wages and rations were controlled. So if the superintendent deemed that her father had done something wrong, as a possible punishment he would be denied rations. He would have to go and ask other family members to feed his family. And of course, as you can imagine, this was extremely demoralizing for our men. In Australia, we talk in the national narrative about the stolen wages, but in my experience, it was actually modern day slavery. So Mum was only allowed to go to school until Year Five. And so you can just imagine the intergenerational impact that's had on our family in terms of being able to access housing, employment, education. As a young woman, if my Mum wanted to go and get a job as a domestic help, which was all she was told she could aim for, or if she wanted to leave the mission for any reason, to even get married, she had to apply for permission from the mission superintendent. And I'm sure everyone today knows the importance of a safe and nurturing environment during those formative years. And being thought about in a strengths-based way. And we all know about the impact of the 'social soup' or the messaging we hear, both as the people who are indigenous and the people who are non-indigenous. A safe environment means feeling secure and strong in your Aboriginal identity, it means a sense of belonging, it means that you see yourself in a strengths-based way, and others do too. Mum had all of that ripped away from her; the determinants of her cultural, social and emotional wellbeing and mental health were shaped very early in her life. It meant that as her kids, including me, were growing up later, Mum lived with the ever present fear that we would be taken away from her. In fact, I'd describe my Mum as a helicopter mum. It meant that when she was given the label schizophrenia, she was even more terrified that we'd be taken away. It meant that she did everything she possibly could to hide her symptoms and her authentic self and within our communities here in Australia, there are many Aboriginal family stories where people didn't know that they were Aboriginal because of the treatment of Aboriginal people, they hid their identity and found out later on in life. So Mum was really terrified to go to the doctor or the hospital. Not only because there was no respect for her cultural and spiritual beliefs, but because of her fear that either she would be taken away and put in a mental health institution, or that we would be taken away. The racism she grew up with, that violence that we all grew up with, be it conscious or unconscious, was internalized and expressed through her illness. The fear that was intergenerationally indoctrinated in Mum from her earliest years meant when her kids were in trouble at school, or even if we did well, like we had a play on or a presentation, she stayed away. And it wasn't because she didn't love us, because she didn't want to help us or the school, it was because she feared that she would be seen as an unfit mum. And I just want to remind everyone that this story is not exceptional in Australia. In fact, it's very common. The stolen generations policies ripped many families apart over decades. And this film, I encourage you to look at it if you can download it, it's called The Rabbit-Proof Fence. So unfortunately, many health professionals, researchers and services were very complicit. Some communities still have collective memories of the involvement of maternity hospitals in the forceful removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids. Aboriginal men were hunted for their heads. And when their heads were returned, the person who had murdered them and brought the heads in was actually given money. And that was in the name of Darwin's theory and research. So my mom had a real living memory of medical experimentation that was carried out on indigenous peoples in the name of research. She had many stories. One of the stories she did tell me was that kids were automatically wards of the state. So soon as you were born, you didn't belong to your mum and dad, you belonged to the state and the superintendent on her mission, really got fed up with too many kids having toothaches. So he lined up all the children that had their adult teeth and had them pulled out. And so Mum had false teeth from the age of 13. So what parent in their right mind would take their sick child to a hospital, or tell a well meaning person anything, if it meant they'd be taken away or have their teeth pulled out. So you may not be surprised to learn that my mum's worst fear did come true. When I was 10 years old, I was removed from her. I spent a year away. And sometimes I think really how lucky I was that this experience didn't happen to me a decade earlier because I probably would've been permanently removed from my family. So you can imagine how this history has had an intergenerational impact. I am a self-confessed helicopter mum. So what were my family's experiences of the systems and services that were meant to nurture children and young people? It was an intergenerational experience. There were those who labeled my mum as an angry black woman before they recognized her as someone with a trauma related mental health issue. Rather than being places of healing and safety, my experience generally is that they were not safe or welcoming. However, despite having, the complicity of the health services of Australia's assimilationist project, there were some really beautiful people who understood and who helped us navigate those systems. And some of those people are the very reason I became a nurse. So during my primary school years, I spent some time growing up in a town called Maitland in South Australia, where we lived next door to the director of nursing from our local hospital. In our home, we had more than our fair share of sick people. My uncle, my mum's older son also developed schizophrenia. So there were lots of sick people in our house and our neighbor, Mr. Walker, would often come over and help us. He would build the health literacy in our home and he wasn't an Aboriginal man. He saw color, which was so important, and he respected our difference and he didn't judge us. And our family often enjoyed a laugh with him and we built a relationship founded on mutual respect and trust. So when I look back, I really recognize that Mr. Walker embodied allyship, cultural safety and respectful practice long before the term cultural safety had even been invented. When I was around seven years old, he told me I'd make a good nurse, because I was smart and kind. He didn't underestimate me and I can honestly say to you, he was the first non-indigenous person that actually said something that built into my life that was strengths-based. And he encouraged me to see beyond the mountain to see what I could be. He gave me a lifelong respect of, and I've coined this presentation on it, a saying that says, "we can only ever travel at the speed of trust, and trust takes time". That's true whether we are thinking about our relationships, as individuals, as neighbors, as colleagues or as nation states or globally. So as a young nurse, I learnt two very powerful concepts that have become my lifelong passion and continue to drive my work. One of these concepts is cultural safety, which I'm gonna come back to later. And the other is the cultural determinants of health. Let me briefly unpack this concept and make the point to you right now that the cultural determinants of health are interwoven with the social determinants. So we need to have culturally determined housing. We need to have culturally determined education and culturally determined employment. It's foundational to the social determinants. It's not a standalone domain. Aboriginal people have always known that culture and identity are important for our social and emotional and physical wellbeing. That's because at times we've been denied it. And they are critical to the determinants of health. I grew up knowing about what we call the cultural determinants of health, because they were just embedded into my every day, into my relationships with my family and my relationship with country, in my understanding of my responsibility to care for our family, our elders, and of course, care for country. And these domains of work on cultural determinants, is the work of Dr. Ray Lovett. It was research that was commissioned by Lowitja, and I encourage you to go to the Lowitja website and download the report on it. So being strong in my culture and my cultural identity really helped protect me from the slings and arrows of racism that I experienced when I ventured out into dominant culture spaces, like mainstream schools or health services. And I remember one young woman coming up to me and saying, how do I become the best indigenous nurse ? And I said, the best indigenous nurse that you can be is really knowing yourself and being strong in that your identity, because when you come up against those slings, those things that people tell you about yourself, you'll know they're not true. So as a child, I didn't use the terminology cultural determinants of health. It was quite simply just about being who we really were. So the cultural determinants embraced so many aspects of our health, our connection to country, our lore our kinship, our languages, and our cultural knowledges. But of course those knowledges weren't a part of my formal learning. Instead I learned about the brave white explorers who discovered this place we now call Australia. And I remember the uneasy feeling in my stomach, as we learned about the 'primitive savages' that roamed the lands here, living simple nomadic lives. And Bruce Pascoe has just written a book called Dark Emu, which actually, really counter balances that story. And he talks about indigenous Australians as being the earliest civilization, the most sophisticated agriculturalists in our farming. But as a young girl, I knew all the stories that are told weren't true. And I was confused about what I was being taught and also about what I wasn't being taught. And this experience is reflected in the recently released documentary In My Blood It Runs. So this is still happening today where indigenous kids learn that Australia was discovered only 200 years ago. At school and at university, I learned nothing about the rich and complex cultures and knowledge systems of our ancestors. I learned nothing about our technological ingenuity, our sophisticated healing practices or our sustainable land management practices anchored in our ways of knowing, being, and doing. These systems and knowledges that have existed for tens of thousands of years, shared through complex kinship systems and passed down through systems of law, ceremony and song. So for me, since time immemorial Aboriginal people have held a holistic view of health and wellbeing that incorporates the multiple realms of physical, mental, cultural, environmental, spiritual health and wellbeing. We've always known that we don't sit outside of nature, or our ecosystem, we are actually a part of it. It's why indigenous rangers in our national parks - and this is a bit of research that Lowitja has done - are so happy. Even if they don't get great pay, they're working on country, their indigenous knowledge is valued and respected and they're giving back to their community. So it makes me smile when I hear academics getting all enthused about the latest new paradigm in public health, like planetary health. Our people have been practicing planetary health for tens of thousands of years, understanding and respecting those intricate linkages between the health of humans and other forms of life, including the life of country. I often think if only early European explorers had paid attention and respected our knowledges, how much healthier we would all be right now, our lands, our waterways and our ecosystems. But unfortunately explorer's discovery skills were limited by their racist colonial world views, which have had a profound, damaging legacy, meaning that so many non-indigenous Australians are still incapable of seeing us for who we really are. And I often share with people, some of the things, the offhanded slings that I get, which is ' but you're too pretty to be Aboriginal', 'gee you've done really well for yourself'. Those are meant to be compliments coming from people. But if you're an indigenous person that's definitely not what they are. So my nursing journey is where I learned about cultural safety. And it's from a Māori nurse by the name of Dr. Irihapeti Ramsden, you might hear about cultural security or cultural competence. But those theories don't come from indigeneity and from the view of colonization, so that's why I'm very deeply invested in this indigenous theory. I'm sure many of you know, about cultural awareness or cultural training, cultural awareness training is a comfortable exercise of training. And it others us as indigenous people by examining our cultures. Hence, and this is the thing that I want you to remember, the gaze is outwards. Yeah. You're learning about Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander peoples or indigenous peoples it's often then based on the simplistic notion that all indigenous peoples are the same. And as you can see by this language map, 250 different languages, and then there's even subsets of that, like every family we are extremely diverse, so there's no tick list and there's no cookie cutter approach. But cultural safety is different. By contrast, the gaze is inwards. It's about critical self-reflection. Cultural safety training encourages us, the participants, to get uncomfortable. Your truths are being challenged. Cognitive dissonance is happening and you're critically examining yourself and your own worldviews. Your assumptions and your beliefs. And you're really thinking about how these assumptions and beliefs were formed intergenerationally and how these might be harmful for indigenous colleagues and clients. So I'll give you my nursing story. I often talk to nurses about, do you ask someone if they're Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander or not? I get two answers, not if they don't look Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. To which I ask, where did you learn what Aboriginal Torres Strait Islanders look like? My daughter is so fair. So she's an Aboriginal woman living in fair skin. She needs to be asked. So we unpack that bias. The second thing that they'll often say is no, because I don't want to offend them. These are nurses, asking people when they last opened their bowels or what religion they are or how much they earn. Therefore we begin to get enlightened about what we've learned about being Aboriginal. There must be something shameful in that. So why would I ask that and get the reaction? So that's some of the, beautiful enlightenment work that we get to do in cultural safety. And importantly, whether a health service or an organization is culturally safe, is not judged by the provider of the service, but by the recipient of the care. Cultural safety, therefore has the power to be transformative in challenging entrenched power dynamics and Western ways of doing business. And I love this analogy by Greg Phillips that puts that into perspectives. " Men wouldn't be asked if sexism was eradicated, nor should women be asked to fix it." Similarly, white people wouldn't be asked if racism has been eradicated and indigenous people shouldn't be asked to fix it. Cultural safety unpacks the concept of dominant culture. When you're a member of dominant culture, your identity is constantly affirmed and reinforced in ways that you possibly don't even realize. So what do we mean by dominant culture? It's the set of values, beliefs, standards, and systems that govern and organize our lives. They were brought to this country by Britain when they claimed and colonized Australia. This includes the laws, the structures, the decision, making the processes, the ideas... the systems were established as normal based on that. And they are the basis of how we do things now and used as a required norm for everyone who lives here and also who arrives here. Life is normal for the people that are living inside that center circle. But for those of us living outside of dominant culture, it can be challenging. Our identity, our ways of knowing, being and doing are rarely acknowledged or affirmed by the normal. Cultural safety asks us to unpack and challenge power dynamics, particularly in systems. It asks us to think about what we don't see. For example, here in Australia, we have a game called the Australian Football League. We have amazing over representation of indigenous players in the league. But we don't have any indigenous peoples when you look at the coaches, when you look at the governance systems, and when you look at the CEOs of that system of all of those teams. so it's really saying we're good enough to be players, but we're actually not reaching those higher echelons of of the system. So cultural safety provides the means to challenge or eradicate the institutional racism that our people face in accessing healthcare. So institutional racism occurs when the dominant culture is upheld as the best and right way of living. And it overrides the values, belief, standards, and systems of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander cultures. Often we talk about a vine, what happens first are all the trellis are laid in the vineyard and the analogy is that those trellis are the legislation and the constitution and the systems, and then the vine grows over it . And that's the people, the population and of course the the grapes of the fruit of that. But if you take those trellises away, the vine still continues to grow in the same way. So even though we've taken away a lot of racist legislation in Australia, our systems are still built on that. And so is the population thinking. So cultural safety is not the responsibility of health professionals. It should be a part of the core business of everyone - and I'll tell you a bit about the work that I've done on that in a moment - from the hospital cleaners to the hospital boards, to the CEOs and the administrators, and of course, beyond health, into all aspects of our work and our life. Cultural safety also talks about privilege. And I got into hot water talking about privilege in Australia and that'll come off a little bit later in my presentation, but what do we mean by privilege? It's benefits associated with being a certain identity in our society that are not available if you are not a part of that identity. So privilege is a system of advantage based on race. Something that you cannot take up or give. We are part of a system that gives it to us. It's hard for those who have it to see it, but easy for those who don't have it to see that you guys do have it. and it can be difficult to talk about because people don't feel privileged. And over time we've recognized other forms of privilege, male privilege in contrast to women, able-bodied people in contrast to people with disabilities, different types of disabilities, heterosexual people privilege compared with LGBTIQ. So those are the sorts of privileges that we've talked about in Australia, but we're just embarking really on what it means to have race privilege. And so what does that mean? So it's the unearned benefits that comes with simply being born white in a society where white is the expected and the accepted social and cultural norm, like in Australia. As a result of privilege, you're more likely to be included. You're more likely to be accepted. You are definitely more likely to be believed, have a look at our judicial system. You're more likely to be trusted and you're more likely to be treated as an individual rather than a representative of your whole race. So I worry, because often when I do things in the public eye that actually reflects on all of indigenous Australia, not just on me. Earlier this year Western Australia's Edith Cowan university honoured the work that I've done in cultural safety, where I worked with Aboriginal and non-aboriginal nurses to embed cultural safety into our codes of conduct for nurses and midwives. And this code of conduct for cultural safety is now being embedded into the education system and across all registered health professionals because of that work that we did together. And I'm really happy to take questions about how we did that, particularly about bridging narratives. But our united front was particularly important when we were met with media opposition, because we talked about cultural safety and because we talked about privilege this was the type of media backlash that we got - some of those headlines "nurses told to acknowledge white privilege in new code of conduct". And that actually went on for about two weeks in the media. And if it wasn't for the Commonwealth games and some Russian spies being poisoned , could have gone on for a lot longer.  So I just wanna now go through with you just some learnings, from working with this group of nurses. Firstly, I thought I was working with a group of feminists. And when we began to unpack some of our priorities, I began to see the intersectionality of sex and race. Aboriginal women's priorities were very different to those of non-aboriginal women in that group. And then we had to go back and honestly, as a group, do some historical truth telling together. And I asked everyone in the group that was non-indigenous to read a book, a powerful book from Professor Aileen Moreton-robinson. It's called "Talkin' up to the White Woman" and it talks about how indigenous women were actually locked out of the feminist movement in Australia and indigenous women were also through historical truth telling we found out, locked out of the feminist movement within nursing.  Many of you in the health professions, particularly in nursing, will know of Florence Nightingale. She's the feminist icon for nurses. And what she circulated about indigenous women, not just here in Australia, but throughout the South Pacific, she writes "There is nothing more filthy, loathsome, revolting a creature than a native woman in her wild state. Native women are all together unlovable". So that's how we kind of bridged some narratives between non-indigenous nurses and indigenous nurses. We unpacked historical truth telling through cultural safety training. Because they had done that cultural safety training and a lot of critical self reflection, these non-indigenous nurses understood about their power and their privilege, and that it wasn't the work of indigenous nurses to counterbalance that backlash. It was their work. They needed to do it. And most of the media that was done actually didn't need to be done by me. My non-indigenous counterparts did that. They stepped up to the plate.  And thirdly, my work through the cultural determinants perspective has also centered on birthing on country here in Australia, so that our babies can be born on country with family. And birthing on country also promotes the restoration of birthing practices. We now have a whole generation of Aboriginal kids, reclaiming indigenous names, which is fantastic. So nursing's played a really critical part in my life and I've worked to connect with indigenous nurses globally through my Atlantic fellowship. And just to see if the work that we've done in Australia is transferable with them and their country and through that indigenous ethos of reciprocity and sharing trade, and because of our large footprint in the workforce and our ability to, access healthcare for our peoples and also build health literacy. It's important to work globally and for them to work with their non-indigenous nurses to focus on decolonizing nursing globally, and the thinking. So I've been working to bring this work to the Lowitja Institute, to really think about privileging indigenous health researchers and uphold our ways of knowing, being, and doing, when challenging that blinkered Western academic model that continues to cause a lot of harm for indigenous peoples. And that's where I'll really halt my journey today. Looking to build strong links globally with our organization and indigenous health researchers. And thank you for your interest. Kirsty: Wow. I just want to acknowledge that I find this so difficult and confronting to talk about. And that if it's that hard to even listen to how difficult it must be to live through and talk about. Ariadne: I know. Pervasive racism, and it's so hidden here, particularly in Australia and we pretend, and we try not to see it. And then you hear people's stories and the impact of how racism affects just everyday life and how we so need to change those stories and turn up in different ways. And I just want to acknowledge Jeanine's resilience and ability to continue rising above and changing that story. It's really powerful. Kirsty: Yeah. And to thank you for sharing with us so honestly, Ariadne: and generously, thank you, Jeanine. Kirsty: Ari, what are the things that really stuck out for you? Ariadne: I think one of the key things for me is this really important concept that we can only travel at the speed of trust. And that trust takes time and that you can have all the technical solutions in the world, but really it's this relational piece between people. The other point that really stood out for me was the importance of almost, like a stranger within the community, someone external to your own circle who came in and saw in Janine this

Indigenous Storytelling Meets Virtual Reality with Mikaela Jade The Ampliseed Podcast: Inspiring Stories, Episode 1       This is the first episode in Ampliseed’s Inspiring Stories series— interviews with leaders who inspire us on our pathway to an equitable and nature positive future, who share with us what brought them to this space, which opportunities inspired them, and what challenges they had to overcome.  Jump to: On this episode | About the guests | Show notes | Transcript Mikaela is the CEO and Founder of Indigital. As a proud Cabrogal woman of the Dharug-speaking nations of Sydney, Australia, Mikaela comes from the world’s oldest storytellers. She loves technology and is a strong proponent of working together, in person, with communities. Named on The Australian’s 100 Top Innovators List and recognised as the 2021 Indigenous Leader of the Year at the Women in Digital awards, Mikaela has been widely recognised as a leader in the technology space, and her company Indigital has received numerous awards. Mikaela is based on Ngunnawal Country in Canberra.  Ariadne Gorring (co-Host) Ariadne is the co-CEO of Pollination Foundation. Ariadne is passionate about Indigenous-led cultural conservation, working with the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) for over 20 years on native title and cultural and natural resource management. She is a former Atlantic Fellow for Social Equity at Melbourne University, and recipient of the Barbara Thomas Fellowship in Conservation Financing via The Nature Conservancy Australia. Ariadne is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne. Kirsty Galloway McLean (co-Host) Kirsty leads Ampliseed, a global network connecting practitioners with a rights-based, human-centered approach to building environmental resilience. Her background includes over a decade with the United Nations working in Canada and Japan, and 15 years as CEO of a management and communications consulting firm in Australia. As Executive Director at Pollination Foundation, she works to connect and support international organisations, philanthropists, business, Indigenous and community leaders, and other corporate foundations to drive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Kirsty is based on Bunurong Country in Melbourne.   Indigital Schools in Action To find out more about what Mikaela and Indigital are up to today, please check out the Indigital website indigital.net.au, and follow them on social media.  Facebook: @indigitaledutech | Instagram: @indigitaledutech | Twitter: @Indigitaledu |  LinkedIn: @Indigitaledutech    head over to our website to learn more about what we do. We'd like to close with a special thanks to the BHP Foundation whose support makes this work possible. And Ari, do you want to give a couple of words about our next episode? Ariadne: Yeah. In our next episode, we will feature an inspiring story from a woman who is leading systems change and human flourishing. So look forward to having you all join us then. Kirsty: Fantastic. Till next time. Bye.