IN A NUTSHELL
Our team are collaborating with the owner of a beautiful, 3 storey warehouse located in Sydney's Inner West. This building has sat vacant for 16 years and is about to be given a $1M refurbishment by the owner. Our hope is to turn it into an off-grid, green building which will include solar panels, vertical gardens and the use of sustainable and recycled materials.
Our team are volunteering their time and skills to create a space that will house a mass collaboration of business owners, service providers, entrepreneurs, creatives, educators and innovators who all share one common goal - to create a better world now and for future generations.
Every single dollar spent in our buidling will create a positive social impact in our village and future sister villages.
THE CHALLENGE
As individuals, facing such enormous crises in the world right now, we can tend to feel a sense of helplessness and despair. Despite our growing concerns about climate change, global conflicts, widespread inequality and our deepening disconnect with one another we feel unsure exactly at how to make a difference or undo some of the damage that has been done to our planet and its inhabitants.
Yet we also have the understanding that we can use these feelings to springboard us towards answers and a better future. We can see there is a need to come back together, know our neighbours and find a new love and respect for nature and one another. There is a recognition that we must collectively take action today so that there can be a tomorrow.
THE SOLUTION
The Village Project is our response to the crisis the world is in right now.
Our team believes that the only way to move forward is to walk together, the only way to respond to the challenges we face each day is with a collective voice and the only hope we have is to join together as a unified village.
Our deep sense of interconnectedness and our strong belief that we have an innate responsibility to one another and our planet is what has inspired our vision for The Village Project.
This project is all about reimagining what the village looks like, asking people what their role in it is and discovering how together we can create a better world, village by village.
Being built for our local and global community, we are offering this space as a place to be inspired and empowered, to collaborate and connect, to learn and grow and to partake in this collective vision that one person - you - are able to make a powerful and lasting difference.
THE BUILDING
We are extremely fortunate to be working alongside a building owner who was on board and excited by the vision from the very beginning. From our first meeting with the owner, almost 6 months ago, we began to design what the building would look like floor by floor:
The ground floor will be a large market space that is filled with diverse retailers selling sustainable and ethically made products; an ethical eatery and bar; and friendly facilitators who offer advice on how to make positive purchases.
The middle floor will be an interactive, educational and creative space that hosts a variety of events including workshops, films, art exhibitions and talks. You will also be able to be part of our shared economy and borrow household goods from one of our “libraries” (not just books!) or hire the space for your own event.
The top floor will be a space for like-minded business owners and entrepreneurs to work in an environment that is dynamic, purposeful and collaborative. There will be rooms to lease, hot desks to hire, and ongoing opportunities to connect and develop valuable business and personal relationships.
Renovations look to be completed by mid to end 2020.
BEING BUILT FOR OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL COMMUNITY
We want this space to be bulit for the community and by the community. This is a rare opportunity for the community, tenants and owner to collaborate on a space like this and for us - the community and our team - to have a say in how this building gets refurbished and what goes into the space.
Once the building is open we want the community to be able to easily access the tools, products, resources, events and information that will empower people to affect change in their lives, their neighbourhood and the world. So we are opening up a conversation with the community and asking:
What do you want to see in this space? What products, services, events and resources would you like to have in your own backyard? How can you see our community coming together to create a better world?
CREATING A BETTER WORLD, VILLAGE BY VILLAGE
The best thing about this project is that it doesn't stop at our own community. All profits made in The Village Project will go towards creating a Sister Village in another community that is in dire need of assistance. This could be rural Australia or somewhere overseas - what matters is that we are able to create another village that is meaningful and helpful to the community it is situated in.
Not only will our community fund this Sister Village through making purchases in the building but they will also get to choose which community we plant our Sister Village in. Over the first year or two of opening we will be asking people to put forth suggestions as to where they would like to see a Sister Village and why.
The question will be - how many Sister Villages can we create? And how many Sister Villages can they then create?
SPACES THAT CREATE CHANGE
Across three diverse floors there will be the opportunity for business owners, service providers, organisations, creatives and educators to come together under one roof for the sole purpose of creating change. This space will be a vibrant hub where these groups can work alongside like-minded people, be supported in their professional or creative journey and connect with a wide range of socially conscious customers and clients.
We will also be inviting people who have ideas for a new social enterprise, program, product, or service to join us in the building to pilot their ideas and see them become a reality.
Spaces will include:
- Hot desks and meeting rooms
- Offices and consulting rooms
- A commercial kitchen
- Classrooms and workshops
- A theatre for talks, film, art, music or performance
- Retail or hospitality areas
FIVE WAYS TO HELP CREATE A BETTER WORLD
These five values are interwoven into all we do and form the foundations of The Village Project. Every business, organisation, service provider and individual who joins us in the building will be committed to upholding these five values.
- Social Inclusion: creating spaces that celebrate our shared humanity and encourage people to connect in meaningful and positive ways.
- Collective Learning: enabling the sharing of knowledge and skills that inspire people to create change and to come together to learn and grow.
- Social Enterprise: building and assisting businesses that are robust, profitable and exist to create a positive social impact for the greater good.
- Environment & Sustainabilty: helping to create tools, spaces, products and services that empower people to adopt sustainable practices with more ease
- Wellness: creating wellness for individuals and entities, physically, mentally, emotionally, personally and professionally.
THE JOURNEY SO FAR
For the past 6 months our team have been volunteering their time, skills and resources to see The Village Project become a reality. So far we have committed $15,000 of our own money to help pay for the start up costs and over 1,200 hours of our time researching, setting up, marketing, designing, filming, meeting and slowly turning a huge vision into a solid plan. (Not to mention the long nights scribbling down ideas when we couldn't sleep because of how inspired we were!)
This is a huge project and we can't do this alone. We have spent years dreaming about this project and the last 6 months actioning it - we now need support from our local and global community to see The Village Project come to life and become a place where we can reunite, take action and create lasting change.
