Eco-friendly communities

Eco-friendly communities is a partnership project between the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) and the Local Community Services Association (LCSA), the peak body representing 300 Neighbourhood and Community Centres in NSW. Meg was employed as project officer to develop and implement this project.

The project uses a community development model which is flexible and democratic to support communities to undertake local projects to promote sustainability. The project has tested several approaches which are central to a community development model:

• undertaking environmental education where people carry out sustainable activities – in their local communities
• using existing community networks to contact people who are active participants in their communities
• using strategies to target women, who research has shown play a major role in taking environmental action
• integrating environmentally sustainable practices into everyday community and household activities, and
• using local media to promote the project

Project activities are:

• engaging Neighbourhood and Community Centre staff and volunteers in regional workshops to engage participants in discussions about how they can involve their Centre and the local community in a project to create sustainable outcomes.
• providing small grants to the regional areas to develop local environmental initiatives
• provide support at a regional level for these initiatives

This project has been independently evaluated and has received on-going funding download evaluation report here

A copy of the kit produced for this project can be downloaded here