OTK Leadership Camp
Like so many others, our organisation was affected by the global COVID pandemic. However as always we were able to be fairly flexible and adaptable - one of the benefits of being a small volunteer run organisation. So 2020 instead of a large group leadership camp bringing kids out to the camp - a couple of our volunteers headed to Kowanyama and set up camp out bush and ferried small groups of kids back and forth spending time with them out bush. They were encouraged to enjoy the beauty of their home, reconnect with traditional bushcrafts, learn how to drive a boat and other great activities. Many a campfire chat was had about peer pressure, resilience, how to make the choices that make it possible to buy a boat to fish with, techology use, sticking it out at boarding school etc.
Please consider donating to support future camps like this that are 100% volunteer and donation run.
Community Demonstration Garden Project
We were approached in 2017 by RISE (formerly Jobfind) who wanted their work program participants to get involved in the demonstration vegetable garden. This was a great chance for a partnership and we offered to provide training from our volunteers on all aspects of the garden. This partnership has continued until the present although of course 2020 looked very different for RISE too with COVID restrictions and changes. The garden did suffer the impact of this but is getting back on track. The biggest encouragement though was when we made it into Kowanyama in September of this crazy year, we had multiple requests from community members for Moringa plants to grow in their gardens for eating and better nutrition. We were able to distribute a number of the potted up plants. We also saw quite a few around town growing in people's gardens from previous plantings.
Most encouraging however was hearing how many people are eating the Moringa and improving their nutrition. One of our volunteers is now conducting a kidney disease clinic in community and large numbers of the patients report that they have been eating healthier and using the plants that have been promoted by our project.