Alexandra’s Embassy of Ideas’ founder fostering community connections

With its usual gatherings on hold, this Alexandra group and its award-winning founder has used flags and this very special cupboard to keep people connected.

Building ties: Sasha Barrow with fellow Embassy of Ideas committee member Kerry McGahy in front of the feature wall in the embassy.

SOMETIME in mid-March, just as the first wave of coronavirus restrictions started to hit home for Victorians, a little cupboard appeared in Alexandra.

Called a community caring cupboard, it was packed with non-perishable food and personal care products. Accessible 24/7, users were simply encouraged to “give what you can and take what you need”.

It was a new project for the Embassy of Ideas, an independent, not-for-profit volunteer-led group whose “vision is to cultivate a connected, creative and caring community”, says founder Sasha Barrow.

And just like many organisations across the country, the embassy was having to find new ways to fulfil that mission during a pandemic, with its usual gatherings at its headquarters ruled out.

“It’s a place for being able to foster sharing, collaboration and community spirit. We do that in a whole bunch of different ways,” Sasha explains.

Give and take: Alexandra’s community caring cupboard. Picture: Supplied

“Like most things when you start off with an idea, it evolves … it has changed and still will adapt over time, especially with COVID and based also on how the community embraces us and what we do.”

Sasha, 45, first moved to Alexandra in 2005 for work, but between 2014 and 2017 she, her partner and their two young children lived in Ethiopia and Indonesia, where she worked with Australian Volunteers International.

Even before they returned to Australia, Sasha had begun thinking about starting a community group back home. When the space at Bayley Street became available just as they were preparing to move home, those plans took another step towards fruition.

“I had seen and read about so many awesome programs, initiatives and organisations locally and globally and I kept thinking, ‘why don’t we have that?’,” she says.

“It’s one of those things you kind of go, ‘If not you, then who?’ There is a point where you’ve got to go, ‘I need to try this and take that risk’.”

However, initial plans were put on ice when, six weeks after coming back, Sasha suffered a brain injury in an accident. A couple of months later, a tumour was discovered, which required brain surgery.

It meant that Embassy of Ideas, whose name was inspired by a gallery in Ethiopia, did not launch until 2018.

“Part of that journey now for me is going, ‘whatever’s going to happen, is going to happen’ … not getting too stressed, and having a go,” Sasha says. “I’d be more upset if I didn’t have a go at doing it.”

Embassy of Ideas is run by a committee of eight volunteers, including Sasha, and many of its initiatives centre on using its space to bring people together, sharing — whether that’s food, knowledge or otherwise — and limiting waste.

There’s the Alexandra Repair Cafe, a monthly meeting to which locals can bring broken household items to be fixed. The embassy also runs a weekly morning tea, dubbed CommuniTea, and a monthly potluck dinner. Other community groups can also use the space.

Sasha was named Murrindindi Shire’s Citizen of the Year in January for her volunteer work, including with the embassy. But since then, Embassy of Ideas has had to come up with different ways to support its community because of virus restrictions.

As well as placing the community care cabinet — which has already been upgraded to hold more goods as well as a books and games exchange — at the entrance to the embassy’s headquarters, the group helped deliver care packages.

Art creation: Kellock Lodge residents with their COVID journey flags.

It also co-ordinated a pop-up soup kitchen, working with eight organisations to provide 1004 serves of soup to locals in Marysville, Taggerty, Eildon and Alexandra across nine weeks. That was delivered with council funding, but Sasha says a new version — Murrindindi Meals — about to get under way will use a pay-it-forward model through local cafes, kickstarted by a local benefactor.

The embassy has also been running a community art project called COVID journey flags, where locals were able to create little, bunting-style flags “to be able to express how you’re feeling”. Adapted from a nearby community house’s “COVID quilt” idea, everyone from schoolkids to nursing home residents have contributed more than 150 flags to date. “When we get through this there are some plans for some significant community celebrations … we can hang the flags up and it will be a reminder of that journey,” Sasha says. “And you feel like you are part of something else, and I think that’s really important right now.”

It’s that community connection, the exact principle Embassy of Ideas hopes to foster, that Sasha worries people are missing most at the moment. She says people are tired and anxious, so every little gesture can help.

“That’s why any small act of kindness now actually means quite a lot. It’s kind of amplified at this point because of how long the pandemic has been going on,” she says.

“I think we’ve seen so much more of that in the pandemic. That’s been one of the things I’ve truly loved is to see the community spirit come together in so many different ways.”

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