Solved Solutions: Recent

Stepping stone to employment for Indigenous Australians

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:57:06 +1100

The Problem

For those who have never experienced employment, or who have had a negative experience with employment, it allows people to blossom in their own time. It gives participants real work experience, paid employment, skills, confidence, and the hope of open employment. Through the training cafe, participants can grow and learn, and take these skills into mainstream employment. Without this, many candidates would be placed into employment and set-up for failure, which would only perpetuate negative stereotypes.

The Solution

There is an Aboriginal Training Cafe in Alice Springs called Kwerralye which is a stepping stone program that leads into open employment for Indigenous Australians who need a hand into the workforce. It is located on the campus of the Institute for Aboriginal Development (IAD). Trainees are supported through hands on, real employment in the cafe, which allows participants to grow their skills and confidence. Known as an "incubator", this cafe provides any one who wants to work, the opportunity to commence their journey into employment, and particularly targets individuals who need more than just a training course to be successful in mainstream employment. Participants learn team work, how to manage workplace issues and situations as they arise, and also learn life skills such as cooking nutritious meals.

More information: kwerralyecafe.com/

Live Below the Line

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:22:22 +1100

The Problem

Live Below the Line seeks to combat extreme poverty in two distinct ways: raising funds for educational opportunities in the developing world, and creating widespread awareness of this important issue (HINT: conversations are the key!).

While extreme poverty can seem overwhelming, Live Below the Line is a straightforward way to make a clear impact. It will change your life, and by sharing your experience with others you can help raise awareness of the injustice faced by 1.4 billion people in the world.

The money you raise for the Oaktree Foundation will help fund educational projects that tackle extreme poverty at its source. By challenging yourself to Live Below the Line you can have a direct and meaningful impact on extreme poverty in our region.

The Solution

Live Below the Line will challenge you to live on $2 a day, for 5 days. It opens a window onto the day-to-day experience of extreme poverty, and mobilises thousands of Australians to make a real difference.

Providing schools, kindergartens and artists with high quality, low cost recycled craft supplies

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:06:52 +1100

The Problem

Resource Rescue facilitates the reduction of landfill while promoting recycling and re-use within the community. Many schools, kindergartens, local artists and individuals are able to take advantage of these incredibly cheap materials.

The Solution

Resource Rescue collects donations of materials that would otherwise have gone to landfill from various industries across Melbourne. At our recycling outlet we make these materials (used for various art and craft projects) available to the community at minimal prices.

More information: www.resourcerescue.org.au

Taste Food Tours

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:35:48 +1100

The Problem

All projects of The Benevolent Society are designed to give something back to the local community, which is why the food tours are set up as a social enterprise. The tours help to explore the cultural diversity of South Western Sydney, also giving a positive image to the suburbs that often receive negative media attention. The tours focus on the generosity of businesses and the cultural bonding. Locals are trained as tour guides thus creating training and employment opportunities and small local businesses are promoted to sell their wares. All net profits from the tours are re-invested in this community project. The Taste Food Tours thus impact on the socio-economic development in the area through a unique business model that helps to build pride in the community as people from other areas are attracted to visit and shop and learn more about different cultures.

The Solution

Taste food tours are a social enterprise project of The Benevolent Society.They are part of a social initiative in Bankstown under the Growing Communities Together project.Taste is a suite of activities designed to showcase the very best of South West Sydney’s amazing multicultural food traditions. The Benevolent Society is using the love of food to bring people together and bridge the social divide. Paticipants from all over the state and beyond love to come to these walking tours and experience the various cultures and learn about the residents and their way of life. The walking tours are day time tours held on most Saturdays. These are themed to project the cultural speciality of each suburb. People can choose from Middle Eastern, Asian, South American, Bangladeshi or European flavours or decide to come to a World fare that is a mix and match of some exciting flavours from around the world. What is unique about the tours is the hospitality and warmth of the locals. The tours are led by local guides who share their own insights about food and the specialities from their culture. Tour participants visit food businesses, café's, spice shops, green grocers and speciality stores. Starting off with the much needed coffee with some local snacks, the day promises to be a gastronomic indulgence of tasting and sampling. Every tour has a sit-down lunch and finishes off with some mouthwatering desserts.The local guides show guests the best places to eat, shop for ingredients and learn all about different food cultures and traditions. People on the tours have the opportunity to not only taste a range of specialities in store, but can also take part in a ‘master class’, and get lots of samples to take home. From walking tours to recipes to cooking classes and cookbooks, there’s something for everyone. Tours are also organised for private groups and tailored to include team building elements.

The Big Feed

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:34:14 +1100

The Problem

Too many young people are simply not well. They are obese, diabetic, addicted to alcohol or drugs, experiencing metal illness, tooth decay or chronic disease.

These issues are compounded by the fact that they do not have the literacy to get well. Reading instructions on medication and understanding health terminology are challenging while difficulty in reading means they are confused by food labelling, struggle to fill out forms and feel intimidated by the complicated rules required to participate in the complexities of day to day life.

Lacking the skills, income or housing to live well or care for others, many young people cannot cannot cook, identify or access quality foods.

Few young people appreciate the positive social engagement around sharing a meal or the nexus between food and the celebration of their own cultural diversity. All this seems to be beyond their reach, as does having the confidence to participate in organised sport or cultural community activities.

The Solution

A fundraiser and social enterprise to improve the well-being of young people and help them realise their potential.
The Big Feed aims to:
*Create innovative educational resources, improve kitchen facilities and deliver independent living, health and fitness skills training, in collaboration with organizations caring for children and young people.
*Support other social enterprises and the not for profit community by providing an online retail platform together with social media and marketing .
*Create employment pathways and opportunities for young people as social entrepreneurs.
*Generate income from food-related business activities.

More information: www.thebigfeed.com.au

Start Some Good

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:22:04 +1100

The Problem

While the wold is full of solutions the problem is the barriers placed in the way of changemakers to implement and grow these solutions.

We have built a wall around the charity sector, restricting the best tools to tax-deductible organizations (and mostly just to those registered in the United States!) when there's no evidence that tax deductability is a key driver of giving behavior. We believe instead that what inspires people to make smaller-scale investments in social innovation is inspiration, a sense of belonging, a desire to support an individual or cause, a belief in a better future.

Peerfunding holds enormous promise to get around this restriction but has been largely limited to creative projects (eg. Pozible and Kickstarter). SSG is designed specifically for social entrepreneurs and changemakers and supports all projects, nonprofit, for profit and unincorporated.

We therefore make it easier for new changemakers, and new solutions, to emerge and make a difference.

The Solution

StartSomeGood.com is a platform to allow changemakers, ie. solutions-generators, to mobilise their community and raise the funds they need to turn their vision into impact.

StartSomeGood uses a peerfunding methodology, similiar to Pozible and Kickstarter, but with a unique model designed specifically for changemakers.

Peerfunding/Crowdfunding empowers changemakers to make a difference by allowing them to raise the necessary funds from their community, in multiple smaller contributions, rather than being reliant on a single big grant or rich individual.

We know the world is full of committed individuals and great ideas, we want to make it that much easier for people to take their ideas and get started! So we share the aims and philosophy of this website: there is so much that is and can already be solved; but we need new platforms to both highlight and support these solutions. StartSomeGood.com is such a platform.

See www.StartSomeGood.com for examples and more information.

More information: www.startsomegood.com

"Lets Make Stroke Sexy!" a bold new social campaign

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:48:03 +1100

The Problem

To save lives, increase awareness, prevent the incidence of stroke. Reduce disability & suffering, improve "accessibility" to rehabilitation, lobby government for "EQUITABLE" funding.

The aim is to create social conversations and to increase awareness of stroke and aims to change people’s attitudes to make positive changes in their local community, the health system and government funding areas.

Stroke is the 2nd leading cause of deaths in Aust and the LEADING cause of disability!! BUT IS FUNDED - way down the governments list .... at NUMBER 13.

Perhaps this new "Social Campaign" is not as crazy as the funding statistics! More EQUITY in funding, based on facts, statistics and relation to health issue.... would be NICE!

Maybe this is just what we need.... one gutsy lady to "Champion" a social cause that no one else has the guts or balls to tackle!!!!
We all need "Champions" so lets join the new social revolution! WE are looking for YOUR IDEAS!

So join the revolution on Facebook, 'Lets Make Stroke Sexy"
or You Tube - 'Lets Make Stroke Sexy"

The Solution

A NEW social awareness campaign which challenges 'mainstream' attitudes & 'transforms' ideas into bold, creative solutions to a complex social & health issue.

The initiative aims at;
• 'creating social dialogue' & conversations 'that matter!'
• 'gutsy & bold' it challenges how people think & view stroke
• It promotes facts on health, funding & the "inequity" of funding systems
• A "grass-roots" focused program, centered around community 'engagement', 'empowerment', 'collaboration' & 'partnerships'

It poses 'questions' that challenge our mainstream thinking - such as; "what makes a cause 'sexy', so 'attractive' that we 'give' time & money to it?
It unveils the current funding situation & poses the idea of designing ‘funding models’ based on community needs – creating social "EQUITY". Funding is swayed by ‘clever costly advertising campaigns’, aimed at making a “CAUSE” ‘attractive’ (sexy!), ‘trendy’ and ‘more worthy’.

The awareness campaign is owned by the community & is for the community! The first ever campaign of its’ kind - launched at TEDx NEWY (Newcastle, NSW) by social innovator & entrepreneur, Alli Hammett.

BE PART OF THE NEW SOCIAL REVOLUTION! A new way of engaging the community in decision making & sharing creative solutions to ‘conventional complex issues” & creating “positive change!”

Facebook - Lets Make Stroke Sexy
You Tube - TEDx NEWY, 'Lets Make Stroke Sexy'

Creating social inclusion through song.

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:06:45 +1100

The Problem

This has already led to members gaining employment through improved self esteem, contacts and skills developed through the programs. In just two and a half years thirteen With One Voice choir programs have been developed involving hundreds of participants. These diversity choirs have in turn reached out to thousands of people with their moving stories and inspirational performances. When many diverse voices come together as "one voice" on a regular basis, the outcomes are transformational.

The Solution

Creativity Australia’s acclaimed With One Voice choir social inclusion and community wellbeing programs aim to recognise each unique voice. The choir programs are unique in that they deliberately build and bridge social capital. They bring together people of all ages and from all walks of life, cutting across socioeconomic, cultural, religious, generational and linguistic barriers in the pursuit of harmony. The program deliberately brings together migrants, the unemployed, those with disabilities and disadvantage, and general citizens and workers seeking to unlock their creative potential and make a difference. The programs build bridges of understanding across all areas of society...from asylum seekers to CEOs of organisations. The programs provide important opportunities to develop networks for friendship, belonging and employment. Participants develop leadership potential, build self esteem, communication and creative skills. They also learn how to work as a team.

The Biography Program - celebrating stories of people in aged care

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:36:31 +1100

The Problem

Whilst our ageing population grows, admission to a nursing home is typically a time of great loss: loss of independence, inability to fulfill important roles and loss of identity and meaning. Time spent in a nursing home can often be experienced as a period of neglect, loneliness, disconnection, grief and depression.

While many residents struggle to adapt to the many physical changes associated with ageing, illness and end of life, they have something uniquely valuable to contribute to the communities in which they live – their own unique life stories.

The Biography Program allows our elders to share their life story and to be known, affirmed and valued. The process itself helps sustain identity, creates a sense of community belonging, enhances personal meaning in life, and cultivates personal relationships.

The Solution

We support Volunteer Biographers who help people in aged care write and publish their life stories.

The Biography Program uses the power of storytelling to celebrate and honour the rich and unique life histories of older people in our community.

Produce to the People Tasmania

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:30:24 +1100

The Problem

Vegetables that might go to waste go to people.
At the moment over 2000 kilos of vegetables a month that would be wasted are going into people's tummies. This project also builds community capacity by getting people to grow for each other.

The Solution

The ethos of Produce to the People is grow, gather, give.
•In a nut shell we gather excess backyard and farm grown vegetables and give them to people in need in the community of North West Tasmania.
•We provide recipes to help people experiment with veggies they might not have used.
•We also build Snack Gardens in Schools and Community Houses to teach people where their food comes from, seasonality and how easy it is to grow your own.

More information: www.producetothepeopletasmania.com.au