Congratulations Kim and Claire!
In 2022, Merri-bek Council awarded two recipients a Nature-Based Leadership Program (NBLP). This scholarship is delivered by CERES and Nature’s Apprentice and is designed to help participants develop a deeper connection with the earth and discover how to share this knowledge with the community.
The two winners of the scholarship were Claire Hetzel and Kim Day.
They were identified as people who would greatly benefit from the program, who were in a position to share the impacts with their broader communities, and who may not otherwise have been able to participate.
With the scholarship now complete, Claire reflects on her experience:
“The NBLT program has impacted my life in many ways,” she says. “The greatest of which has been the connections with a community of like-minded humans exploring ways to take positive action in the world.”
“Spending time deeply immersed in wild places, as part of the program, has also been deeply healing after the preceding years of covid-lockdowns.”
Kim says the experience was life changing:
“I have a deeper sense of connection to place and community and a desire to learn how to live in true reciprocity with nature,” she says. “I feel like I can no longer partake in society’s ‘business as usual’ ways of consumption and destruction and I am now on an irreversible journey to find alternative ways of being.”
CERES and Nature’s Apprentice will be running the NBLP program again in 2024. For more information, visit the website.
Other support for environmental initiatives
Merri-bek has other opportunities to celebrate and support the environmental work of our community.
The annual Merri-bek Awards have an Environmental Sustainability Achievement award, and the Community Grants Program funds groups, organisations and individuals to implement initiatives, including environmental, that benefit the Merri-bek community.
