CERES Community Environment Park: A Hub For Sustainable Community-Based Learning And Action

Background of CERES Community Environment Park

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CERES Community Environment Park is a place for the community-based learning along with action that help to socially just, create environmentally valuable, economically satisfying, spiritually nurturing and culturally enriching ways of life. This particular park is a Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies initiated by the government of Australia. It is a 10-acre urban environmental centre which is located in the urban area of Brunswick East, Victoria (Ceres.org.au, 2018). This park has received Banksia Environmental Award for Education and Training in the year 1996 along with many other awards.

Initially this park was bluestone quarry then a landfill of the municipality of Victoria. This particular park is a charity which has the principal purpose to protect and enhance the natural environment of the region. The authority of this environment park aims to engage more people in spreading environmental awareness in the country. They provide education as well as information for increasing the understanding of the human resource management influences on the natural environment. This park in Victoria has become a perfect place for community based learning and actions so that sustainable ways if living can be achieved.

CERES Community Environment Park was found in the year 1981, formed by the group of people who were dedicated to social awareness matched with community involvement (Ceres.org.au, 2018). The actual aim was to focus on the mitigation of growing environmental issues. This is the reason why a neglected land in Brunswick East was secured for developing an environment park. This CERES Community Environment Park plans for future initiatives research, projects and development of these communities residing in Victoria. Through collaborative initiatives with these communities, it creates community exhibitions, numerous community events and arrange community cultural festivals which enrich the history of this place and improve intercultural communication and connections. These events are so very popular that these have hundreds of visitors each time.

• CERES here is pronounced as series. It refers to the name of Ceres who was the goddess of agriculture and crops in the Roman mythology. It is a four hector park and adjacent to Meri Creek.
• A nursery which has specialised in the permaculture, native foods as well as bush foods
• Here the visitors can buy organic grocery
• There is a café which remains open 365 days
• In this environmental park, there is a community kitchen
• The environment park provides educational walking trails
• It also has an energy Park.
• The Chook Group is one of the unique site groups at CERES environmental park. These groups are consisted of a set of local communities. These people tend a flock of free-range chooks compassionately in the park’s permaculture environment.
• Multicultural exhibits.
• In this park the visitors can hire indoor and outdoor spaces for arranging any types of events
• In the bike shed, a team of volunteers recycle as well as repair bicycles to help the community in Victoria.
• Sustainable water projects can be found in this environment park where there is an Urban Water Conservation, Demonstration and Research Facility.
• The EcoHouse situated in this park demonstrates the sustainable living retrofit options. The EcoHouse is one of the most attractive part of this park. It shows the method to convert existing housing stock to significantly reduce the individual impacts on the earth.
• The community gardens in this park is an example of components leading to sustainable growth.

This environment park runs urban agriculture projects, extensive environmental education programs, green technology demonstrations and other effective social enterprises. This includes a community market, grocery, community kitchen, café, online organic supermarket and permaculture and bushfood nursery. CERES Community Environment Park is partly subsidized through own programmes and events or the project donations from different Government as well as private sponsors (Ceres.org.au, 2018). This park is open to the people freely but donations as well as memberships are always appreciated. In this park there is a popular volunteer program which is available for all. The park has seven most important sections which cannot be possible without the support of the local community.

Achievements of CERES Community Environment Park

As a visitor of this particular environment park, the permaculture and bushfood nursery can be a new and unique experience. This particular section aims to encourage the backyard food production method. From this part of the park one can learn to transform any place of their house to a garden. The visitors can buy a vast collection of plants which can be grown in their garden. The staffs provide needed knowledge and support for maintain the garden. According to the annual report of CERES Community Environment Park it offers facility to enjoy a unique as well as attractive shopping experience the visitors can bring in their recycled plastic or glass jars which are filled with the organic bulk food or liquids by the sellers. They also offer various products which are mainly environment friendly. CERES Community Environment Park has a section namely CERES Global. This particular program of this park invite s the national as well as international visitors to travel on a unique participatory, educational, cross cultural along with skill sharing program. This park has many international partners who engage with the company of Victoria and take necessary actions for attaining sustainability. Each year in this program the visitors can learn and share experiences that the communities doing exceptional work aiming to attain sustainability. These programs facilitate the environmental protection as well as community development which leads to the social equity along with education (Dalal-Clayton & Sadler, 2014). 

The community exhibitions arranged by the communities and supported all inclusively by the environmental park authority, provides a forum for the community organisations along with special interest groups so that they can investigates the themes associated with environmental protection and cultural diversity. These projects of this community park, encourages the community participation, collaboration and ownership. In order to attain sustainability as well as development, this CERES Community Environment Park has considered each of the communities to be unique in their own ways. By the method of respecting each of the communities and monitoring the constantly emerging communities in this region, this park brings verity in their programs as well as projects. This gives the community park a host of opportunities in order to become more flexible as well as adaptable with these variety of cultures (Dalal-Clayton & Sadler, 2014). This helps it to adopt a collaborative approach for working with these various communities in the region of Victoria. This method of respecting and considering of this super-diversity in the region, clears the way for the community park authority to process the method of establishing as well as developing relationships with the communities. These are built on the basis of their shared goals, mutual respect, honest and open dialogue with these communities. This helps the authority to attain collaborative attitudes and gain success in these engagement programs. Through this process, the organisation aims to build a long term connection with these diverse communities of Victoria and capture their dynamic interplay. The focus is to connect these communities transnationally and mitigate the socio and economic differences by the means of environmental rejuvenation.

According to the annual report of CERES Community Environment Park in order to attain these goals, the Ceres Community Environment Park has arranged educational programs so that the communities can be facilitated to gain global knowledge beside their own traditional educations. The initiatives to educate the children of the communities had a humble start but now it has become one of the largest sustainability education providers in Victoria. Various educational programs for promoting the diversity and sustainability have been arranged by this organisation (Dalal-Clayton & Sadler, 2014). The issue of urban development and sustainability can be seen from the perspective of diversity in the area where this park is located.

As the chief aim is to promote sustainability, this park gets huge support from the governments (Ceres.org.au, 2018). To bring the variety in the study, the programs include incursions and excursions for the student groups of all ages who can visit this park and further them researches on environment as well as cultural diversity of the communities. The Victorian Government has initiated the program naming ResourceSmart Schools which helps the schools to be benefitted from inserting sustainability in whatever they do. There are programs for the teachers also where the primary as well as secondary teachers can take part in the Contemporary and management workshops arranged in this environment park. In addition to this, CERES Community Environment Park offers Certificate II in Hospitality as well as Horticulture as a part of their Vocational Education and Training (VET) program. Moreover, this park has arranged guided site tours led by the trained educators to help the students to further research on the history, governance along with education programs at the national as well as international level (Ceres.org.au, 2018). This organisation also has helped the disabled young adults of the communities to meaningfully engage in complex and integrated relationships between the food production and their consumption. Through these programs and projects, the CERES Community Environment Park has helped the communities of Victoria to attain sustainable growth.

References:

Ceres.org.au. (2018). Home. Retrieved from https://ceres.org.au/

Ceres.org.au. (2018). Youth Disability Programs. Retrieved from https://ceres.org.au/education/youth-disability-programs/

Dalal-Clayton, B. & Sadler, Accounting. 2014 ‘A macro framework for sustainability appraisal: concepts, principles and perspectives’, in Sustainability Appraisal: A sourcebook and reference guide to international experience, Earthscan, pp. 12-60