Alice Springs solicitor to participate in national ‘changemaker’ conference
The conference aims to train rural Australians how to be resilient and inspire positive change in their communities.
Northern Territory
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An Alice Springs solicitor has taken her desire to bring about positive change in her community to an Australia-wide level by taking part in a national rural “changemaker” program.
Alexandra Craig is the in-house lawyer and contracts manager at the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, also serving her community on the government’s Youth Justice Advisory Committee and as part of the community visitor program at the NT Anti-Discrimination Commission.
“I was really lucky the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation runs these fantastic local changemaker workshops,” Ms Craig told the NT News.
“I did a two-day workshop held at the desert park in Alice Springs, and I attended with 30 other changemakers from Alice Springs.”
The changemaker workshops are run in collaboration by the Australian government’s Future Drought Fund and the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, with an aim to “revitalise rural resilience in the face of natural disasters and problems plaguing communities.
The workshops focus on shifting mindsets and empowering participants to become drivers of positive change in their communities, through teaching them about problem-solving and resilience in the face of adversity.
Common challenges that the ARLF program facilitators aim to address include bridging communication gaps, turning challenges into opportunities, adopting new perspectives and building new connections.
Ms Craig applied and was then selected to attend the national conference in Cairns, which takes place from June 24-26, and was funded by the Future Drought Fund.
She said she hoped to instil a “bit of optimism” in the community.
“I think Alice Springs is such a beautiful melting pot of people and Central Australia, but I have observed that our community is divided and that feeling of optimism is becoming rare,” she said.
“It’s been such a formative place for me, it has been a place of opportunity and I’m hoping to attend this conference and then bring the learnings back to Central Australia and into my practice.”
The Australian Rural Leadership Foundation has delivered more than 80 workshops since the program’s inception, reaching an estimated 2,000 participants committed to driving positive change in their regions.
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