In August 2023, 12 students graduated from the University of Tasmania as Community Knowledge Collectors.
This is a first for mainstream community shared learning and evaluation in Tasmania.
A Community Knowledge Collector is a person who is interested in their community, the opportunities, and challenges it faces. They help collect information and stories so we can understand what matters to people in our community. This knowledge is then brought together with other information and data to shape community action and shared decision making.
They have the skills to engage with community; collect people’s information safely and respectfully; understand the information they have collected; and then with permission, use this knowledge to create advocacy, action, and change.
Without community knowledge the big changes rely on data and experts from outside the community. Community Knowledge Collectors bring community and lived experience into the mix – just as it should be.
With local insight, local knowledge and local action, Burnie Works.
Burnie Works partnered with the University to codesign the pathway for Community Knowledge Collectors. Burnie Works has also played a key role in mentoring and managing the project as well as providing other training opportunities for students.
Annie
What are your favourite foods?
Mangoes, anything hot and spicy.
What do you like most about where you live?
We’re surrounded by nature, it’s peaceful and quiet, but only a short trip to the beach and town or up into the mountains. Best of both worlds. The North West coast is an amazing place to live with a thriving arts culture and beautiful places to explore.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
Writing, reading, art, music, theatre. Anything creative will draw me in. I believe in the power of stories to change lives.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
Humans are really interesting and I love hearing their stories. Our lived experiences are one of the best tools we have for creating change and growth. So many people have never had the opportunity to have a voice and be heard. I intend to help change that.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
urnie has a thriving community of people who are passionate about change and growth for our region and beyond. Too often, we only hear about the negatives. I feel blessed to have been able to get involved with this project and meet some really amazing people.
Have there been any challenges?
I suck at time-management, but I’m good at coming up with new ideas. I’m learning to play to my strengths.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
I’d love to see more of what we are doing at Burnie Works in the media and on social networks, as well as all those hidden networks, and find ways to connect people to all the great projects that are happening.
Belinda
What are your favourite foods?
Anything Japanese, and strawberries.
What do you like most about where you live?
Being so close to the ocean and beautiful parks is a real treat. Living not too far away from some of the most beautiful places on the planet is also a real bonus. I love the pace of life in Burnie, and I value the sense of community. It feels like people genuinely care for each other.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
I am passionate about protecting our natural world, both flora and fauna, as I know how good it is for my soul and mental health to be able to simply walk through a beautiful natural space and feel connected to the life around me. I am passionate about capacity building through ensuring equitable access for every person in our community to the services they need to help them flourish. I'm very interested in hearing and recording people's life stories by way of their final memoirs, and hope to be doing that more in the future as a Legacy Scribe.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
I genuinely love talking to people and asking them questions. I am a natural nosey parker, and now I can put this fascination to good use! Also, nothing is more powerful than collective action that starts at the roots of community. As a Community Knowledge Collector, I get to be a part of an amazing process that flips the current way of doing on its head. Everytime I get to ask a resident about what they feel a thriving and flourishing Burnie might look like, I am humbled by the deep heartfelt responses that almost always put community first. It's rarely about "what I need", but about "what WE need". I love that!
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
That I know very little. That observing and assuming are no substitute for doing my homework on an issue. That nothing is as powerful as approaching someone and taking the time to talk and ask the the questions that actually need to be asked. That community will rise together when they are afforded respect and feel genuinely empowered to make a difference. That this can only happen when people feel as though they have been heard.
Have there been any challenges?
Have there been any challenges? Yes...doing a Knowledge Collection shift in the rain on a cold winter's morning, but then...someone from community comes over and stands alongside me and talks, because it matters to them. And then I don't feel cold anymore. Some people don't trust us, because they are fatigued by hollow promises and having their trust betrayed. I hope people start to see us allies.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
The more community members that are willing to share with us their hopes for Burnie, the more compelling our data becomes, and the foundations for deep cultural and systemic change will be laid. We can then take a full picture to those can fund the needs of our community in a sustainable and long-term way. But, it takes ALL of us to make this happen. For ALL of us to raise up our voices and share our visions for the future of Burnie. On a day to day level, I'd love people to talk with others about the conversations they've already had with a Burnie Works Knowledge Collector. And I'd love as many people as possible to talk with us when we are out in your neighourhood. Sharing and validation build trust. We need trust so badly right now if we are to hope for a brighter future for our young people. We ARE stronger as a team. The bigger our team, the louder our voice. Let's move forward together.
Claire
What are your favourite foods?
Anything with bacon, seriously. I grew up with Hungarian and German grandparents, so salami and cheese or cold schnitzel sandwiches were the norm in my lunch box which in the early 80'srural Victoria was seen as very strange.
What do you like most about where you live?
We moved to Penguin just under a year ago. We LOVE it here and it was the best decision we have made. We loved where we lived in Victoria, we were just ready for a change after 17 years of living in a eucalypt forest. We now live in walking distance from the ocean. We have made friends and have become involved with several community groups including the Penguin Football Club. I am now that person who gets up on a Saturday morning to go watch the women play at 9am on a winter's morning. I love that when I go to work, I drive past some of the most beautiful coastline in the world. The people in the community we live in have been friendly, welcoming and accepting of this mainlander who plans to not move away from this island anytime soon.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
Equity and inclusion for all is what I strive for every day. I have the privileged position of being well educated and working in a profession where I use my skills for advocating for those who with my support can advocate for themselves and get what they need to succeed. And in my private life, advocating for members of my LGBTIQ+ community who are targeted for being their true selves. I am a fabric hoarder and have enough fabric to live out several more pandemics. Yes, I need that piece of fabric, no, I don't have too much already! I love quilting, crafting and learning skills that are easily lost in a world full of fast fashion and replaceability. I love cooking from scratch and am working towards buying as little prepackaged meals as much as possible. We are currently planning our vege garden and a backyard orchard. I have books on my bookshelf that I look forward to reading in the sun while drinking hot tea. I love my 3 fur babies who have adjusted to being indoor cats and who don't care for how little space the 'Staff' have in the family bed.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
I signed up as a Community Knowledge Collector as I saw it as a way to better understand the community, I was living in. I had only just moved to Tasmania from Victoria, was not yet working and thought it was the perfect opportunity to meet people and to learn new things. I want to be a useful member of my community and the only way to do that is by getting involved in opportunities that are given to me.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
Burnie is a diverse city and also unique due to its location.
Have there been any challenges?
It takes a lot of dedication and self-regulation to complete study when it is mostly online. I started full time employment and a house renovation back in March, so making time to work on this has been challenging, but also rewarding.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
There is always an aspect of surprise of what the final outcome will be of any data collection project. My wish is that community relationships are stronger and that the community benefits from the outcomes of our findings.
Judy
What are your favourite foods?
Asian Foods
What do you like most about where you live?
I love being near the sea as I am a person that needs to be around water as it is my happy place.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
I am interested in people. Their stories. They’re journeys and I love sitting around a campfire and just having a chat. I am passionate about fairness and equality and believe all voices need to be heard.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
I love talking to people and believed becoming a knowledge collector would help get peoples voices heard.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
The most important thing I have learned is the importance of communities, how they are made up and how they can bring about change.
Have there been any challenges?
As I am a mature aged student I did find absorbing information hard but through input from other team members and support of our Burnie Works team leader and UTAS coordinators I got through.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
Promoting the Knowledge Collector service and help Burnie works gather lots of stories so they may be used to initiate change.
Keeomee
What are your favourite foods?
A Roast 🙂
What do you like most about where you live?
My family all live close by.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
My 2 kids and ensuring they have the best possible opportunities in life to be the very best they can be.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
To have more skills to utilise within my role within connected beginnings, as it is all about listening to community voice and their stories.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
That I can do anything I put my mind to, even a university short course.
Have there been any challenges?
Yes as this is not the way I learn best so overcoming this to be able to complete the course.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
Real and meaningful change for the community.
Mikkayla
What are your favourite foods?
I love a good steak! But couldn't say no to a chocolate chip cookie.
What do you like most about where you live?
There is nature everywhere. It is so special to see pademelons, rabbits, rakali, cockatoos, magpies, kookaburras, and wrens just out on an evening walk.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
I come from a teaching background and am very passionate about what opportunities we provide for our young ones. I am interested in animals, fashion, writing, and gaming.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
I had recently moved to Burnie and saw this as a great opportunity to get to know the people in my community.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
There is a much more diverse group of residents in Burnie than there appears. There are collectives all over of people helping and supporting one another. Burnie is very self-sustaining.
Have there been any challenges?
I am not a natural conversationalist. Interviewing people is a skill that I have yet to master but am hoping to pick up along the way.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
Burnie seems to be a community that is committed to change. We want to be at the forefront of innovation and collaboration and I think we are achieving this. Burnie Works is being led by the wonderful residents to make significant changes for our community - by the people, for the people. I hope we can keep this going to make meaningful spaces for local youth, collaboration between all services in Burnie, and set a standard of interactive and respectful practise that others can follow.
Mardy
What are your favourite foods?
Homemade cakes and biscuits.
What do you like most about where you live?
Close to beach.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
Cycling and aboriginal communities.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
I would especially like to preserve the history of Burnie and gather information and the opportunity to be given the tools to do this was exciting and a privilege. I met Shandel to discuss and she was lovely and encouraging.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
I have learnt about the processes and alternatives to gather information. Positive changes in the community can be achieved with the methods we have learnt.
Have there been any challenges?
It’s been a huge challenge. One of the quizzes took countless times to get right but by doing that it enabled me to learn that unit very well. Many challenges in my personal life has made my study a real challenge. Very fortunate to have Shandel encouraging me.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
Perhaps start a project. If I could plan one project with Burnie Works that would be an achievement.
Shandel
What are your favourite foods?
Chocolate all the way
What do you like most about where you live?
That my nearest and dearest are all mostly close by. The fact that we can easily access any part of Tassie from where we are. A magnitude of day trips or just a few hours from a longer holiday in paradise. The fresh clean air and our environments - beach one minute, forest the next.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
My family. Playing a role in creating and sharing opportunities for my community to thrive.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
Because I've come to realise the importance and power of stories. I want to play a role in elevating and using other's stories to support advocacy, action and change.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
The whole journey has been one of learning. In its entirety it has provided a really solid foundation to design and cement what the Community Knowledge Collection Project is. I have learnt to be flexible, how powerful stories are, the integral role community voice is in place-based work, and e-learnt the importance of relationships.
Have there been any challenges?
Translating vision to practical, on the ground solutions always comes with its challenges. Everyone involved in the project has been so patient and willing to learn with us, taking ownership and playing their role when required that the opportunities and celebrations far outweigh the challenges.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
To create a strong community voice that is accessible and can be shared and used where needed for advocacy, action, and change.
Sonia
What are your favourite foods?
Roast Lamb and Vegies! Eggs, Zucchini cake and CADA (shredded coconut, apple, medjool dates & almonds).. and good Italian pizza!
What do you like most about where you live?
The scenic nature of ocean views, bushland and mountains. Good quality highways and main roads across the North West Coast, that allow you to get to lots of places within a 40 min drive. Diversity of things to do and places to go, from great walks and platypus sightings at Emu Valley Gardens, to capturing glimpses of little penguins down on Marine Terrace, in Burnie. I love animals! Being able to take your dogs to dog friendly beaches. Exploring and going to free events like, the family-friendly Carrot Festival at Forth, to affordable events like, live music and adventures at the Tulip Festival at Table Cape, Wynyard. A range of public and private schools, and higher education to choose from right here in Burnie. Wow- University of Tasmania, Cradle Coast Campus is an amazing asset here in Burnie! Knowing the quality of the health facilities and private and public mental health systems at North West Regional Hospital, in Burnie. Coming from rural NSW, I know the difference in having to travel hundreds of kilometers to access these services. I love the climate. I can see so much potential in Burnie and I am impressed with the natural innate creativity and resourcefulness of the local people here. The talent is exceptional, and they are confident and proud of their creative artistry.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
The value of nature in connection and people's wellbeing. Creative expression and outlets to share these skills, to increase a sense of belonging. Hearing people's stories, their journeys and how they get through the tough stuff. Growth- growth mindsets, breaking cycles and valuing aspirations for the future. Being a change catalyst, in any small way I can!
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
Honestly, it sounded like a very exciting opportunity! And as a new resident from the mainland, I wanted the opportunity to connect, co-contribute to place-based change and get to know my new community. I am also a curious person, who enjoys listening to other people's stories and values the grass roots voice and movement. I have seen it in action, and it really works! I now realise an underlying reason for signing up was, that I have collected data in lots of previous roles, and I do like to see the outcomes to explain things, such as in statistics. And I value whereabouts the raw data evolves from and how it connects to a community.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
There is a LOT of data sources out there, if you know where to look! I have learnt what a mesh block is. I have gained new insights about co-design, project management basics and data-driven decision-making. Also, throughout the process I have learnt that Knowledge Collectors get to participate in some really cool opportunities, like attending ChangeFest- in Bridgewater, TAS and immersing in the culture of place-based change leadership. How collecting our own knowledge is a powerful resource for our community, it is something tangible that we can trade with to key stakeholders to get our community's needs better met.
Have there been any challenges?
Sometimes the depth of data has been overwhelming. Keeping on track with online self-paced UTAS content, webinars and face-to-face... just keeping track of whereabouts things are up to has been a challenge at times.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
I'm hoping this is just the start of really valuable work in the community. Increased Connections in community...connections, connections, connections. I hope within part of this journey, we can actually highlight to the Burnie community, what is actually working well and build on it. I hope we gain investment in the parts of community that need attention. I also hope we can implement or start a conversations across the lifespan of increasing belonging within the Burnie community, such as aspirations of better linkages across children and elderly and youth with mentors. (such as on TV shows like 4-year-olds regularly spending time with elders in community). I don't know what that looks like, but I imagine that this could make a difference and a cultural shift. Overall, I am so privileged to come along on this walk with Burnie Works on this pilot project and am immensely grateful for this experience. A huge thank you to Shandel too, our leader on this journey. Thank you.
Tamara
What are your favourite foods?
Enjoy most food, love fruits.
What do you like most about where you live?
The beaches, we have so many beautiful beaches all around Burnie and every one of them is so different. The Nature reserves are just as beautiful as the beaches.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
I'm very passionate about my Family, Family first always. I love to cook amazing meals for family. I enjoy going for walks and reading stories, I've recently been enjoying audiobooks, I can listen to a story while getting a job done.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
I signed up because the course helps me with my job as a community engagement officer for Connected Beginnings.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
I have learnt a great deal on what makes a community from a different point of view, by looking at how a community is measured and by how the community members see themselves.
Have there been any challenges?
There was a lot of information to take in over the last 10 months and trying to remember it all.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
I'm hoping to help get a better understanding from the community to what matters to them and their children.
Taylor
What are your favourite foods?
I enjoy curries and savoury treats.
What do you like most about where you live?
The community where I live are so enthusiastic about engaging in what's on and celebrating community and the achievements of themselves and others.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
One of my biggest passions is my advocacy work in campaigning for embedding lived experience into all practices safely and respectfully. I'm passionate about my advocacy in working towards ending family and domestic violence and educating everyone about how violence can and does affect victim/survivors.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
I chose to become a Community Knowledge Collector because after having the chance to share and inform with my own experiences and be able to share my personal expertise to hopefully influence the way practices are shaped I wanted to be able to empower more of my community with the opportunities to share their own stories and expertise by experience, be heard, and have a respectful and safe space to have this happen no matter what that looks like and give those who share their knowledge the chance to influence and have a say in what is happening around their community and home.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
I have taken the skills and practical knowledge I already had and had the opportunity to sharpen those skills while learning how to dive deeper into the stories shared and extract themes and discover what is important through conversation and how to use the data formed to share in different formats the information being collected.
Have there been any challenges?
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
I hope that in the next 12 months we can start to see engagement through community initiatives and see the beginning of community ownership taking hold through community members feeling seen and heard and having the opportunities to share their lived experience and how that affects their relationship with the community they live in.
Wanda
What are your favourite foods?
Curry and ice cream
What do you like most about where you live?
I love the sound of the ocean, the ambience, the energy, the changes in the seasons, the community feel, a sense of belonging. Its my home, the place I love to be.
What are you interested in and passionate about?
Sociology, qualitative research, ancient healing arts and spiritual esoteric studies.
Why did you sign up to be a Community Knowledge Collector?
After graduating from UTAS with a Masters Degree of Social Work last year, I wanted to further explore the research side of social work and this course came up. I thought the knowledge and skills from this course would also come in handy when I work at the Rookery. I have already learnt from working at the Rookery the importance of collecting local knowledge, as it creates positive networks to access resources and mobilise community when social and economic capital is required to remedy a problem. This has resulted because of the power of community knowledge. I thought, to learn the skills so that I could structure community knowledge in such a way as to be useable data that could then result in positive social change very much interested me, hence why I signed up to become a Community Knowledge Collector.
What have you learnt through the process over the past 10 months?
How to identify, collect, curate and structure community knowledge through story telling while ensuring data sovereignty and that the data collected is useful, useable and used.
Have there been any challenges?
The only challenge for me was studying online. I'm more a face to face person and love classroom learning, so the isolation of online learning made me feel at times disconnected from the course.
What do you hope we can accomplish together over the next 12 months?
I hope we can accomplish lots! Because of my love for research and qualitative interviewing, I am hoping I can be involved in lots of Burnie Works community knowledge collecting projects, collecting stories, discourses and narratives while at the same time put all the skills I have learnt in the Community Knowledge Collector Course into good use.