What is a Community Development Worker?

Community development workers work with individuals, families and/or whole communities to empower them to:

• identify their needs and opportunities, their rights and responsibilities;
• plan what they want to achieve and take appropriate action;
• develop activities and services to generate aspiration and confidence.

A community development worker often acts as a link between their client(s) and other parties be they communities or a range of other local authorities. They are frequently involved in addressing inequality, and projects often target communities perceived to be culturally, economically or geographically disadvantaged.

WendyJoy is an experienced community development worker. She is able to act as an advocate for those who may be faced with problems and who may feel powerless and/or unable to make their voice and needs heard. She can also act as a facilitator for any workplace or community group workshop or meeting.

Recently WendyJoy was asked to assist a young woman to break a lease at a share house that was just not working out for her. WendyJoy was able to advocate on the client’s behalf to have the lease broken, a small financial consideration to be paid to the landlord, and walk away free of any further legal or financial liability. Situations like this are never easy, and while it could not be called a win win situation, each party walked away with a serviceable solution.

Need an advocate to help you in any way? Click here

The Eye Of The Storm

This post today continues the Tuesday Wellsprings Life Series.

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Life is not all beer and skittles is it? And yet, with media showering us with 'the right way to look, to feel, to dress, to be' we can be left feeling so inept when faced with everyday troubles that everyday people just don't seem to suffer...Ha!

When faced with troubles,

You can feel like you are facing a storm

When faced with a storm,

Aim for the eye of it, shoot straight

In the eye of a storm you will find

A calm centre of retreat

Troubles are more easily dealt with there

The storm will pass

And the rainbow will once again shower you with colour

Into each life some rain must fall, but too much is fallin’ in mine Into each heart some tears will fall, but someday the sun will shine

('Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall' - Fisher and Roberts - sung by Ella Fitzgerald 1944)

Storms and troubles are a natural part of life, every body will have the ups and then the down days.

Shoot straight into the eye of it and stand true, no matter how much rain falls nor how many tears you shed, a way can be found if you place yourself at the calm eye of the storm to think things through.

Seek the help of a trusted friend or a counsellor if the storm seems too hard, don't suffer alone.

Hope your day is as calm as can be, till next time, much love

WendyJoy xx

Meditation can be very helpful, interested in learning how? Counselling is available at Wellsprings, Or you can call Lifeline open 24 hours every day 131144

Anzac Day

Anzac Day today. It is a day of emotion for me, I grab the tissues and watch the parade on TV.  A very special time of year to celebrate the men and women who went off to war(s).

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Celebrate here is a word that means to celebrate those people who served, for their actions and for their bravery, it does not mean to blow up balloons, drink to excess and make a nuisance of oneself. A game of two up maybe obligatory.

The thing on TV I have noticed just lately are the ads for beer. They get me noticing because of the elderly men talking about what they are remembering, and then I see it's just a beer ad. It annoys me to tell you the truth because I feel tricked into watching it.

I don't mind anyone having a beer, goodness knows the veterans wouldn't either, but all I seem to hear about this Anzac Day is beer, a footy match (and beer ads) as if that is our Anzac Day tradition. It's not, the RSL breakfasts and the Anzac Day Parades are! I cry every year watching them on the telly.

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My dad was a run away boy at 14, he joined the army, and was in Darwin when it was bombed till Gran brought him home; he then went on to join the navy and stayed until the end of the second world war.

I never met my maternal grandpa because he became sick on his way home from the second world war after eating from a contaminated tin can, then got thrombosis and died a young man of 53. He was a soldier in the first world war too, what an amazing sense of duty, and by all accounts a lovely gentleman. So many of the people of the 1st and 2nd world war eras can wear the title of gentle person.

 We are different now, but it's not hard to stand with them today is it?

Here is a picture of Mr Fraser, in France 2nd May 1917. He was a treasured friend of my great aunts': They never married, I guess if you lost all the friends you loved...... it would have been so very hard, Lest We Forget..

I do hope we Australian's can remember why we have a public holiday today. I hope we celebrate it as a remembrance day, and go about our lives with a sense of wonder and awe at the sacrifice defense forces have made.

We don't celebrate wars, nor Anzac Day really, we celebrate the people, those like my grandpa and Mr Fraser, and stand with those who will remember them.

Does your heart just sing with a loving sense of peaceful joy when you watch them tell their stories? Mine does, pass me the tissues please.

Dedicated with love to all the men and women and animals who lost their lives to war, and to all those who lived to tell the stories, the truth of war.

Take care friends, till we meet again next time

WendyJoy xxx