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March 2011
LOTTERYWEST Community Grant
Soul Gestures is very pleased to have been funded by Lotterywest to produce a five year strategic plan for the organisation. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to reflect on the first years of our organisation and to build for a sustainable future whilst maintaining the soul that is so important to all our supporters. Our consultant Norma Josephs is currently conducting feedback sessions with many stakeholders to give us a strong platform for an inclusive vision for the future.
July 2010-March 2011
MANA ORA Maori Youth Leadership Program
Proudly supported by the Office of Multicultural Interests & the WA Youth Music Association
MANA means power/strength and ORA means -of the sun/energy/life. This project was about harnessing the power and energy of young Maori men for positive outcomes. It drew on the traditional Maori leadership characters of whakapapa (genealogy), whanaungatanga (relationships), maanaki (respect), awhi (to aspire) and haututu (mischief/clowning about).
The trial group of Year 10 and 11 boys from Aranmore College learned about traditional Maori culture and the arts whilst also learning about leadership, respect, discipline and fun based upon Maori teachings. The participants shared their new knowledge through performance in College events. They incorporated their leadership training into improved engagement in the classroom.
The project drew on the knowledge and talents of role models from Perth’s Maori community and the boys built relationships within their own community which they will take into the future. This project was an opportunity for the wider school community to learn more about this extraordinarygroup and empowered not only the boys, but also their families.
We are proud that this project has produced young leaders who will aspire to success and leadership in education and life with a strong foundation in their own cultural heritage.
In 2011 Soul Gestures is looking to develop this model further through partnerships with a number of interested high schools. We look forward to the success of MANA ORA being duplicated in other local communities.
March 2010-March 2011
AFRICAN SOUL
Proudly supported by the Australian Government’s Diversity and Social Cohesion Program www.harmony.gov.au
 African students face a number of difficulties participating in education in Australia including disrupted education, different learning styles and lack of language and confidence to participate in an Australian classroom. This project improved the ability of African students to engage with the Australian curriculum by employing African Education Support Workers who were supported with formal TAFE training and mentoring. African families were invited to participate in school events and gained new friendships with other parents. Tolerance workshops were run with Middle School students. Senior African students engaged with mainstream students through a weekly Speaking Club and were part of a Leadership and Storytelling program involving local primary school students.
The great success of African Soul was the African Teachers Assistants who were hotly headhunted at the end of the program because of their skills, qualifications and the genuine results that were achieved in the program, both in schooling and in tolerance. Soul Gestures has just been offered 10 more places to train non-English speaking background parents towards Teachers Assistant qualifications.
September 2009-present
STEPUP4KIDS
A fitness program created by A Fazzari and L Papineau-parents at Our Lady of Grace school with Soul Gestures
This community project was to get every child at Our Lady of Grace School engaging with fitness. The idea, conceived by Antonette Fazzari and Lynley Papineau in partnership with Soul Gestures was to get every student in the school fit over a ten week period in the lead up to last year's Rebel Sport City to Surf for Activ Foundation event. The students walked around the school oval every Friday lunchtime, with the aim to try to achieve the distance of a half marathon.
Every Year 1-6 students were involved in at least one week of StepUp with 160 students achieving the half-marathon. Parents came down every week to walk with the students.
The idea was to create a program that would engage the whole school place it squarely within the local community. Local grandfather Joe Sanzone had said that he “wanted to see a sea of yellow at the next City to Surf” and this is what we set out to achieve. We were able to give students the opportunity to meet local role models who came and walked with them and all of these visitors had a personal connection to the school.
One of the great outcomes was our Year 6 Super Coaches. Every class had a Year 6 Super Coach to encourage them to achieve their laps. These coaches stamped the students’ cards after each lap and kept encouraging them to do “just onse more lap.”
We encouraged all OLG families to compete in the City to Surf and 236 members of the community did just that with the youngest participant only 2 and the eldest 81. Our original grandfather Joe Sanzone, with Craig Hammond from BP Beldon, Balcatta, Mullaloo and Greenwood, sponsored bright yellow t-shirts and caps for every participant and local businesses helped to sponsor both the buses and refreshments.
The result was an extraordinary day as we saw a sea of yellow descend upon the City to Surf. The t-shirts allowed us to spot and encourage every parent and child over the line. The excitement was topped off by winning the Clear Solar School Challenge prize for the largest school group category which won OLG a massive trophy and $25 000 worth of solar panels for the school.
This project simply started with a couple of parents going jogging and then competing in the City to Surf. It led to a partnership to find ways to encourage children to get fit in a time when childhood obesity is such a big issue. This little idea has led to a project that is now an extraordinary blueprint for fun and fitness for any school.
The City to Surf were so inspired by StepUp4Kids that they have used our model to roll it out as a training program for all primary school children, in partnership with ACHPER and the WA Department of Education. Called Going the Distance, this project will allow local communities all over WA to experience the joy and inclusion of StepUp and we hope that many local communities take up the challenge.
September 2009
SAY YES WITH SOUL 2009
Proudly supported by the Australian Government's Diverse Australia Program. For more information visit www.harmony.gov.au
Soul Gestures Inc is currently running a tolerance project in Perth, seeking to engage young people in their local community through knowledge and discussion, research and interaction with local community members. This trial project involves students from Year 5 and Year 8 classes in eight schools across Perth, to explore their understanding of community, to find out their own cultural histories and research people who have made a positive impact towards tolerance in their local communities.
Posters encouraging respect and inclusion will be developed for display in bus shelters across the community. The project will include workshops and provide opportunities for the students to share their stories and to learn from members of their community. The workshops will address issues of racism and intolerance through a positive focus on the excitement and celebration of individual student’s stories and the importance of embracing and respecting every person, regardless of their background or individual circumstances.
The eight schools who are involved in the project are Aranmore Primary School, Mirrabooka Primary, Our Lady of Grace School Rossmoyne Senior High School, Sacred Heart College, St Augustine’s Rivervale and Santa Maria College. The students have engaged with the discussions with honesty and depth and it has been an extraordinary experience to hear their words and to engage with their own journeys.
This Harmony Week Soul Gestures has 8 posters representing our pilot schools and signed by our school principals. They will be displayed the length of Kings Park Ave, past Parliament House and into the city of Perth. Each poster makes a positive statement towards tolerance and respect and is a storng visual message from the students of Perth.
This project has been kindly supported by the Australian Government’s Diverse Australia Program. We would encourage you to look at other tolerance projects on their website
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 Celebrate Active Ageing Locally, funded through the WA Department for Local Government and Regional Development, is an innovative opportunity for Soul Gestures to work with older residents in four Perth councils towards recognising those who are actively contributing to Active Ageing in their community. The stories of these people and their involvement will form the basis for a series of stories on bus shelters within each local community.
The four councils chosen are the City of Joondalup, City of Wanneroo, City of Stirling and Town of Vincent. Soul Gestures will work in partnership with these councils to identify Active Ageing programmes to celebrate. The older participants in the programmes will then be part of a process of nominating a person, celebrating their activity and inspiring others in the community to participate.
Soul Gestures has a strong commitment to social justice and an equal and quality level of participation by all groups within local communities. From the start we saw that there were specific groups within local communities that would benefit from a targeted approach due to negative media, fear and marginalisation. The elderly group in the community are one group that Soul Gestures want as a priority to highlight in a positive way.
Currently in the media, there is an ongoing portrayal of older people as victims of violence and helpless. Soul Gestures is strongly committed to creating balance in this image-both to highlight the quality of life of our older neighbours but also to encourage participation rather than fear in the community.
This project is a unique opportunity for Soul Gestures to work in partnership with the older residents of four local communities in Perth, to support them in celebrating their activities, their quality of life and their value to the community.
We thank the Department for Local Government and Regional Development’s Active Ageing at a Local Level for enthusiastically supporting this project and we know that everyone who reads the stories will be inspired by our extraordinary active seniors.
• February 2008
 
Attorney General's National Community Crime Prevention Project:
Soul Gestures: Celebrating Safer Communities Project
We thank the Attorney General’s Department’s National Community Crime Prevention Programme for funding Soul Gestures: Celebrating Safer Communities. This project is about recognising the people who, every day, make our local communities safer places to live.
This project will celebrate the people who voluntarily work to make local communities safer for all residents; particularly those involved in the Neighbourhood Watch programs, Safety House programs and Constable Care. By highlighting stories about the work these people do- through interviews, bus shelter campaigns and on the website, the project will raise awareness about these important activities, make residents feel that they belong to a community that actively works to make them safe, and be inspired to get involved in community safety programs themselves.
This project provides a clear balance for the constant media stories about crime and violence that highlight only the negative in local communities. Soul Gestures hopes that by providing stories about the positives measures being taken to prevent crime in local communities, people will feel less frightened and more likely to want to be involved themselves in building a safe community.
We would love to recognise the hundreds of volunteers who are putting in their own time to make local communities in Perth as safe as possible. Our public recognition of but a few will let them know that the local community cares and celebrates the important work that they are doing. The stories should allow community members to feel safer knowing that they live in an area where people do care about their family's safety.
We also hope that the stories will inspire more people to become involved in some little way with creating a safe community- free from crime. At the very least they may be inspired to get to know the people living around them and start to look out for each other.
In finding our very special volunteers, we would like to acknowledge the great support and advice from Mike Cox at Safety House WA and Brian Scully at Neighbourhood Watch WA, as well as the extraordinary enthusiasm amongst local community groups and councils for this project. What incredible and passionate people!
• February 2008
Office of Multicultural Interests WA Community Grants Program :
Soul Gestures: Celebrating Diversity Locally Project
From the very start Soul Gestures wanted to be something that makes all Western Australians feel that they belong. It is very important to our organisation that we not only to highlight the more typical “little heroes” but to highlight migrant and refugees who are making a difference here in Australia, and other Australians who are helping people of all cultural backgrounds belong within their community.
Thanks to the Office of Multicultural Interests Community Grants Program, Soul Gestures will be recognising the heroes of local communities who are actively trying to create a sense of community for and with all Western Australians; and in particularly with local residents from culturally diverse backgrounds.
This project celebrates the little gestures people are doing towards engaging new arrivals with their local community; and new residents who are doing positive things within their local community as well.
By celebrating diversity locally, we hope to bring the message of inclusion to a very broad audience within the local communities of Perth. At the very least we might bring a smile to someone’s face and they may face their day with more tolerance. The greatest outcome will be for the stories to inspire even more people to become involved in inclusive activities within their own community.
Soul Gestures has been working with an amazing bunch of experienced people working within local communities who have not only nominated people for the campaigns, but they have also supported Soul Gestures as a reference group for the duration of the project. We thank them for their support, advice and encouragement throughout this journey.
Our Reference Group are: Br Geoff Seaman (St Vincent de Paul); Tracey Anthony (EALD Coordinator, Aranmore Catholic College); Norma Josephs (Director, ASeTTS); Steve Bowman (Director, Edmund Rice Centre); Jenny au Yeong (Executive Officer, Ethnic Disability Advocacy Centre); Chris Brackenreg (Principal, Mirrabooka PS); Haider Al Alkaabi (Baker, community member); Richard Liedtke (State Communications Manager, Centrelink).
It is hoped that this project will encourage more people to reach out to all members of their community, without fear or prejudice. And hopefully all people will feel that they live in a welcome and vital environment rather than possibly an isolating one. And most of all, we hope that this project celebrates the extraordinary and diverse communities we live in.
For more information about celebrating diversity please see the Office of Multicultural Interests website at www.omi.gov.au
We hope that you are as excited as we are about the huge potential outcome from this innovative way of promoting harmony to the people of Perth.
• June 2007
City of Joondalup Community Grant
Soul Gestures is very grateful to the City of Joondalup for embracing our little dream of launching Soul Gestures in the local community where the dream was hatched. The City of Joondalup has funded the launch function in September and the first three stories about people living in the City of Joondalup who are doing Soul Gestures in their own lives. These stories will be on bus shelters throughout September and also feature on this site.
The launch event for Soul Gestures will be held on Tuesday September 4 at the Voyage Kitchen and Delicatessen in Sorrento Western Australia. It will celebrate the hatching of a little dream that we hope will take off in many local councils around Australia.
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