NENA Healthy Humane Habitats Month (All Sessions)

This October, the New Economy Network Australia (NENA) invites you to join us for Healthy Humane Habitats Month — a month-long online program exploring how we can create healthier, more humane, resilient and regenerative places and communities.

What makes somewhere a good place to live? How might we rethink our homes, neighbourhoods, food systems, schools and cities to better support human and ecological wellbeing? And how can we create communities that are not only sustainable, but connected, resilient and regenerative?

Across October, we’re bringing together practitioners, researchers, educators, community organisers and changemakers for a diverse program of presentations, workshops, facilitated conversations and panel discussions.

Explore the program below and join us as we reimagine how we live, together.

One registration, a whole month of events

By registering for Healthy Humane Habitats Month, you are registering for the entire program.

You don’t need to attend every session. Register once and you’ll receive information about the sessions taking place throughout October, allowing you to join the conversations that interest you most.

All sessions will be held online, making it possible to participate from wherever you are.

10:00–11:00am AEST

What might a regenerative, safe and adaptive future look like within the lifetime of a child born today?

Drawing on more than 30 community workshops involving 450+ people, Carmen Stewart will share insights from Imagine Northern Rivers and explore what communities value, the futures they want to create, and the conditions needed for shared visions of regenerative futures to take root.

We’ll also explore the idea of “thrutopia” — how we might move through the challenges and uncertainty of the present towards futures genuinely worth living in.

About Carmen Stewart: Carmen leads Imagine Northern Rivers, a community-led initiative creating spaces for people to collectively imagine safer, regenerative and adaptive futures.

6:00–8:00pm AEDT | 5:30–7:30pm ACDT | 5:00–7:00pm AEST | 3:00–5:00pm AWST

Inspired by Nora Bateson’s Warm Data Labs, People Need People creates a gentle, spacious environment for exploring how we live, learn and care together.

Moving between small-group conversations and different contexts, participants will share stories, listen to one another and experience a relational approach to collective sense-making grounded in curiosity, connection and community.

There is nothing to prepare and no expertise required. Participants are encouraged to join with a working camera and have their camera on where possible.

About the facilitators: This session will be facilitated by Warm Data Hosts experienced in creating relational spaces for conversation and collective sense-making.

Please note: People Need People is hosted independently in partnership with Healthy Humane Habitats Month and requires separate registration via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/people-need-people-warm-conversations-in-online-community-tickets-1993812512898 This session will not be recorded and AI notetakers will not be permitted.

7:00–8:00pm AEDT / 6:00–7:00pm AEST

When the challenges facing the world feel enormous, what can any one of us actually do?

Drawing on her debut novel, Eudaimania: Happiness Disease, Simone Abbot will use storytelling, readings and interactive conversation to explore agency, belonging and hope in uncertain times. Together, we’ll consider how reconnecting with our neighbourhoods and communities — and taking small acts of care and participation — might help us find a way forward.

About Simone Abbot: Simone is an author who spent more than 25 years working within Australia’s Canberra political environment. Her writing explores politics, belonging, community, advocacy and the possibilities that emerge when people find their own voice.

10:00am AEST

What if habitat was not simply the environment around us, but a living field of relationships between people, place and the more-than-human world?

In this shared conversation, Cari Taylor will draw on ideas from Living Cosmology and Life’s Intelligences to explore what becomes possible when regeneration begins with listening. Through reflection and conversation, we’ll consider what is already flourishing in the places we inhabit, what has become disconnected, and what might be seeking repair or expression.

About Cari Taylor: Cari is the writer and creator of One Living System, a body of work exploring Life as a relational and participatory whole and what this means for land, education, community and everyday life.

12:00pm AEST

What does the food on our plates have to do with the future of people and planet?

For World Food Day, Dr Peter Johnston will explore the connections between food, human health and some of the major ecological challenges facing humanity. We’ll look at the impacts and vulnerabilities of our current food system alongside practical actions including plant-based eating, reducing food waste, composting, growing food and relocalising food systems.

About Dr Peter Johnston: Peter is an Accredited Practising Dietitian, Fellow of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine and founder of Perfect Human Food Consulting, with a particular interest in the relationship between food, health and the environment.

6:00pm AEST

As housing becomes increasingly expensive and the ecological impacts of how we live become harder to ignore, what might we gain by sharing more?

Join NENA and the Degrowth Network for the launch of Sharing Where We Live, a new booklet exploring practical ways to live more affordably, sustainably and communally. Through a panel and community discussion, we’ll explore shared housing, co-housing, ecovillages and other approaches to rethinking what a home — and a household — can look like.

About Anisa Rogers: Anisa is involved with the Degrowth Network and NENA and helped develop Sharing Where We Live, drawing on many years of experience with shared housing and an interest in putting degrowth and localisation into practice.

What if schools weren't simply institutions within our communities, but places from which healthier, more connected and ecologically aware communities could grow?

Educator Tijana Ilic will invite us to rethink the relationship between schools, children and the places around them. Drawing on Australian and international examples and alternative educational philosophies, we’ll explore how schools might foster intergenerational connection, ecological awareness and greater participation in community life.

About Tijana Ilic: Tijana is an educator with experience across mainstream schooling, Montessori education and home education, with a particular interest in holistic education, localisation and reconnecting schools with their communities and ecosystems.

How can curiosity about the living world become a pathway into community connection and environmental action?

Environmental advocate and community organiser Aleisja Henry will take us behind the scenes of the Surf Coast BioBlitz, sharing how a community-led citizen science project brought together residents, naturalists, scientists, Traditional Owners and environmental organisations to explore and document local biodiversity.

Participants will leave with practical ideas for creating biodiversity and citizen science initiatives in their own communities.

About Aleisja Henry: Aleisja is an environmental advocate, community organiser and climate engagement professional based on Victoria’s Surf Coast, working at the intersection of climate action, biodiversity and community participation.

7:00–8:30pm AEDT / 6:00–7:30pm AEST

Creating more cooperative and egalitarian communities isn't only about designing different structures. It can also require us to examine the ways existing systems live within us.

In this participatory workshop, Wolf Born will explore trust, vulnerability, self-governance and the inner work involved in creating cultures based on cooperation and shared power. Drawing on sociocracy, nonviolent communication, mindfulness and relational practice, we’ll consider how personal transformation can support the outer work of creating different systems.

About Wolf Born: Wolf is a group facilitator, coach, nature guide and certified sociocracy facilitator whose work brings together decentralised governance, nonviolent communication, mindfulness and relational practice.

1:00pm WA / 3:00pm QLD / 4:00pm VIC

What should our towns and cities look like when endless economic and population growth is no longer the objective?

For World Cities Day, Michael Bayliss and Mark Allen will explore what urban planning could look like in a post-growth society, using Albany, Western Australia, as a real-world case study. From New Urbanism to Retrosuburbia, we’ll explore how towns, suburbs and regions might prioritise resilience, regeneration, affordability, ecological limits and quality of life.

About Michael Bayliss & Mark Allen: Michael and Mark co-host the Post-Growth Australia Podcast. Michael is an environmental and post-growth activist based in Albany, while Mark has a background in sustainable urban and regional planning and advocates for degrowth and regenerative, life-centred futures.