Gome Simfukwe is one of the Team Leaders for the Rural Aid Mental Health & Wellbeing Team. Here is one of his experiences in the North Midlands region in WA as part of the Community Builders Cluster Muster Program.
On Monday, I picked Jen Curnow-Trotter (Community Development Manager) up from the airport and we drove to Geraldton for the night.
Tuesday began with a trip through Mingenew, one of the towns that are participating in the Community Builders project. While in Mingenew, we were confronted with the reality that due to low levels of rainfall, the popular wildflower towns were struggling this year.
We finally arrived at the pub in Mullewa, the host town for this cluster muster, which would also be our accommodation for the night. We had dinner with local team where we met the recently appointed manager of the shire, the deputy school principal and a few other key stakeholders. This was critical in cementing some of the existing relationships we had created over the previous cluster musters as well as developing new ones.
On Wednesday we held a very successful event with different speeches around the theme of ‘Young People’. Jen and I both couldn’t speak more highly of the value of developing those relationships in that informal setting prior to the event.
After the event we headed back to Geraldton for the night. Jen and I debriefed during dinner and we both acknowledged how emotionally taxing the day had been.
On our final day we went for a tour of one the cathedrals built by the famous architect turned priest John Hawes. Anyone who has spent any time with our colleague from Bank of Ideas, Peter Kenyon, would have heard all the stories of how this cathedral and others in the region were built.
On the drive back to Perth we were alerted to fatalities in my local communities, this was what awaited me once I dropped Jen back at the airport and finally arrived home. Needless to say, I was quite spent by the end of the week and all my self-care strategies would need to be employed if I was going to be of any use to anyone, both personally and professionally.
To learn more about the Community Development program, check out: https://www.ruralaid.org.au/community-development/
To donate to help fund this project and help rural communities, click here: https://www.ruralaid.org.au/donate
Story and Photos by Gome Simfukwe On the Road with Gome
