Our Mission, Vision and Purpose
Our mission is to work with diverse and low-income communities to create fair, secure and resilient food systems.
Our vision is for joyful, connected communities who care for each other and our earth.
Our purpose is to inspire a healthy and just world.
Our Values
Positivity
We get stuff done and have a can-do mindset wrapped up in trust and respect for all.
We are good at knowing where we face challenges, and we can continually reflect on doing better or changing our ways. We are grateful for our colleagues and the work we do and the communities we do it with. We remain open minded, share in our success and are united in purpose as a team.
Connection
We care about who we work with and for. We utilise empathy, sensitivity, advocacy, curiosity, and ethics to do it.
For us diversity and inclusion are strengths that make us internally and externally more likely to be in tune with our community and participants. We will work hard with our organisations emotional intelligence to connect with each other.
Opportunity
We embrace ideas and activity that can inspire others to lead change in our communities for the better.
Nothing gets ruled out if we think it can make a positive change and meaningful impact to our services and the frameworks. We measure against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Social Connection Index and Well Being surveys and aspire for our opportunities to impact upon Wicked System solutions.
Creativity
We can make magic happen with the depth and breadth of our team and the diversity of our community.
That magic can be lots of small things or one big thing that brings difference and joy to someone we work with or for. We will critically think about solutions and consider what is the problem we are trying to solve and use the creative canvas of our team and the subject matter of food and growing to solve them.
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Through our work in Public Housing Community Gardens we provide opportunities for low income and migrant communities to access healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food. These gardens are wonderful places of cultural sharing and harmony.
Our Community Food Centres and activities allow people to gather and connect over food, sharing and learning skills, knowledge and our wonderfully diverse cultures. Within our School Food Garden program and our After School Cooking classes, we create opportunities for kids to learn how to grow and prepare food, reduce food waste and act sustainably.
We coordinate, participate in and advise on projects relating to food security and food waste issues. Working with government bodies, local councils and other community groups we increase awareness of food insecurity, educate the community on the importance of food waste minimisation and the benefits of composting. We support the establishment of community gardens providing advice on design through to governance models.
Our story
Cultivating Community have been pioneers of Melbourne's urban agriculture community for over 20 years.
Established in 1998, Cultivating Community began as a project linking people living in the community of Collingwood through arts and gardening activities.
Annual Reports
SDGs
A big thank you to our supporters
