b'GOAL 3: PROVIDE GOODS AND SERVICES THAT CARE FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET GOAL 4: INNOVATE, LEARN AND SHAREDelivering on our FY19-22 Strategic Goalsit was always there, asleep on the back of my tongue, waiting to be spoken and heard againMANDY DAVIS Aeden Frazer, RRA Noosa Mandy Davis, The Seven Sisters, acylic on canvasCommunity & the enviromentLeadershipCase Study: PartnershipsOther earth-positive outcomes flow from our CommunityCase Study: Mandy DavisAlthough Mandy has worked with Community Resources Recycling Centre Diversion, Return and Earn and thefor over 15 years, including as a Board Director, it was For over 30 years, RRA has built enduringthousands of mattresses processed.Mandy Davis brings many gifts to Communitythe much-loved Auntie Margie who invited her into the relationships with local government to reduceOur waste diversion and safe operations are only theResources. A Biripi woman and artist, she wasTransition to Work (TTW) project at Homebase two years waste to landfill, create employment andbeginning of the story. For our partners, the social andborn and lives on Worimi Country in the Midago. TTW provided valuable support to guide young training opportunities for people experiencingcommunity benefits they gain by working with a socialNorth Coast of NSW. people aged 15-24 into apprenticeships and training barriers to work, and connect with communities.enterprise whose core values revolve around people andor higher education. Taking on a full-time position as a Weve effectively partnered with contractors,planet are just as important. A Project Coordinator and Youth Case Worker forYouth Client Advisor, she now delivers art and language councils, community organisations and the widerHomebase, Mandy is one of a growing number ofprograms and supports Natalie Bolt, our Aboriginal and community to transform #WASTE2WAGES.Our welcoming outlets are places people enjoy spendingAboriginal people who are learning to speak with theirTorres Strait Islander Cultural Lead, with cultural business time and connecting to the wider community. Workingtraditional tongue, in her case Gathang, a Pama-Nyunganand language translations.Our proven track record of efficient waste diversionacross largely regional areas, RRA supports localisationlanguage widespread throughout Australia. She also works closely with the linguists at Muurrbay and job opportunities is certainly very attractive to localby donating to social activities such as football clubs andLanguage and Culture Co-operative, which received councils, says General Manager Matt Curtis. They knowpartnering with other not-for-profits to build communitySince the 1990s, Mandys language has become as tightly our reuse shops encourage every individual to contributebenefits.interwoven with her work as the brushstrokes on herfunding to produce The Gathang Dictionary after to a circular economy.beautiful paintings, which sing like dreaming tracks andmany consultations with Biripi, Worimi and Guringay We offer a range of community engagementflow like rivers. communities. Mandys copy has literally been loved to bits. This year, RRA has worked with nine councils and oneopportunities with The Tinkerage, from weekly repair andOur language wasnt passed on to my mothers contracting partner, to serve over 110,000 communityreuse drop-in sessions to full-day workshops upskillingSome students are a bit shy at the start and feel a bit members in its reuse shops and over 690,000 customersthe community in reuse and repair. shamed to participate, she says of her weekly Gathanggeneration, she recalls, because of the colonial across weighbridges. Together weve diverted 9,270classes with primary age children and teenagers, butGovernment policies. Fortunately, the old people who tonnes of waste from landfill for reuse and recycling. With the skills they pick up at The Tinkerage peopleteaching language through story and song is a fun way still knew it passed down as many words as they could. discover they can create something they are proud of,to learn. You see them start to look at things differently.Mandy is modest about her leadership role in her An RRA facility provides people with a place to dropsays Ryan Stirling. Thats very empowering.community and the example she has set for Indigenous off goods that would otherwise go to landfill, explainsThroughout her career, Mandy has proven that her Ryan Stirling, Shellharbour City Council Waste ContractsAt The Green, our calm and pleasant communityleadership skills and cultural practice are complementary.people around Australia, and yet the impact of her efforts Manager. Discarded items from our Transfer Station aregarden space encourages everyone to get involved inEven as she moved into Aboriginal Community Liaisonto revitalise her peoples language, art and ceremony also brought back to the RRA shop where they becomepropagation and gardening.roles with the Department of Education and latershould not be underestimated. bargains for other members of the community. We achieve these results through sustained teamTAFE NSW, she also joined Tobwabba Art. One of herGathang is now taught at Certificate levels at TAFE and effort, says Matt Curtis, with the support of ourpaintings is now a mosaic outside the Wollotuka Institute,through online taster courses. RRA is also one of a select number of organisationspartners and their communities. Newcastle University. In 2013 she set an inspiring within Australia that are recycling polystyrene. Popularexample when she won a landmark copyright case toAlthough Ill never speak Gathang fluently in my as lightweight packaging, expanded polystyrene (EPS)In the future, he adds, we are looking forward toprotect her Emu Dreaming from being appropriated forlifetime, Mandy admits, It was always there, asleep on cannot be recycled by most councils. RRAs specialisedbuilding even stronger relationships to produce acommercial use.the back of my tongue, waiting to be spoken and heard processing facility keeps EPS out of landfill, allowing it torobust, environmentally friendly, circular economy. again. And now Im passing it on.be recycled. PAGE 15'