Making Change Together - Community Led Sustainable Cities

What happens when universities and communities bring together their combined resources to tackle grand challenges like sustainability? 

The Community Led Sustainable Cities project set out to build a place-based roadmap for sustainability transitions that was rooted in community knowledge, driven by local leadership, and aimed towards a collective vision of the future. Facilitated by the Social Impact Lab at UTS’s Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion this project demonstrates how universities can work in reciprocal, empowering relationships with the communities they are a part of.

Join us to discover how narrative and arts-based approaches can be used to highlight lived experience as a key expertise and engage diverse audiences in complex issues. The project also supported 3 community-driven initiatives that empowered local leadership, leveraged community assets, and grew a movement towards the transition. 

These projects demonstrate the potential for universities to act as genuine collaborators for change, valuing the strengths already inherent in community and the connections our institutions have to the places we are a part of.

Nick Grinpukel joins us from the Social Impact Lab at UTS’s Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion. As a facilitator and action research practitioner his work brings together diverse community and university partners to co-design interventions to complex social and environmental challenges. Focusing on participatory practices that centre lived experience, the Social Impact Lab works to leverage the combined assets of the university and the communities it is part of to create meaningful, place-based change.

Yimmy Seifert is a long-time community leader and resident of Pyrmont/Ultimo. Since emigrating from Hong Kong in 1975 she has been a passionate advocate for her community which has transformed during that time from a working-class industrial suburb to a bustling urban centre. Yimmy has been an active community leader for many years, volunteering as president of the Ultimo Public-School P&C as well as holding both treasurer and chair positions with Ultimo Village Voice. She has supported local and state governments to engage with her community and provided consultation on major planning and infrastructure developments. For nearly 50 years, Yimmy has worked to create a community that is vibrant and caring and that possesses a unique village atmosphere.

Dr Glen Powell works with Wesley Mission locally, building inclusive community groups and networks, facilitating local environmental and community projects and grassroots advocacy campaigns. Glen contributes to UTS Social Justice and Inclusion work and is building social change capacity with the Sydney Alliance, where faith groups, NFPs, and trade unions collaborate for the common good.