Creating Space Project

This episode is part-two of Bearing Witness: The backstory to Creating Space where we hear the inspiring yarn behind Ruth Nelson and how this podcast came into being. In the first episode we followed Ruth who, as an 18-year-old, inadvertently signed up to volunteer in community work with refugees leading her on the path of studying psychology.

She survived a brain encephalopathy, and in not choosing the path of least resistance, Ruth headed to northern Uganda at the age of 26 to work in community outreach as an NGO. It's in this episode where we pick up Ruth's story as she struggles with the futility of her presence, as a young inexperienced community worker, in an active conflict zone. Ruth saw her role, initially at least, as bearing witness to the atrocities of this insidious and complex conflict but over the two years she initiated and facilitated many programs, some of which had surprisingly comedic outcomes.

After Ruth returned to Australia to complete her qualifications as a psychologist and to work in the field, life happened, and she made a difficult decision to put her career on hold to dedicate her efforts to raising her child. It was during this period, Ruth felt like she was losing hope as social media reflected a world of growing ignorance and intolerance. So she decided to share stories. What was supposed to be a blog, became a podcast and Ruth searched far and wide to ask women to share their own stories at the virtual campfire. Ruth believes we are sentient bags of saltwater who just love a good story, and in listening to others we can readily identify shared values despite coming from different, seemingly alien backgrounds.

Since the Creating Space Project started in June 2016, Ruth has facilitated, so far, the sharing of stories, in a narrative framework, of 73 ordinary, yet extraordinary women. It was my opinion Ruth's story needed also to be shared and she eventually acquiesced to my appeal for an interview. I think it makes for a particularly inspiring listen … enjoy!

This is the last episode before Ruth takes a break for a few months, as she is due to have another baby. But fear not - the Creating Space Project will return!

It seemed remiss - to me at least - with all the stories that have been shared by this project of ordinary, yet extraordinary women, it had not featured the captivating journey of its creator, Ruth Nelson.

It took 12 months and some gentle persuasion for Ruth to acquiesce to my appeal for an interview. The notion that she would become the object of interest left Ruth feeling ill at ease, yet her experience, I argued, was at the essence of the Creating Space story.

I knew Ruth's personal story would make for a fascinating and inspiring episode, but as it transpired, the yarn - much like Ruth herself - proved difficult to contain and so, I proudly bring you the first episode in a two-part series.

We start with Ruth at 18 lying to nuns about her experience and inadvertently signing up to volunteer at a charity, Josephite Community Aid, with refugees. Following a stint in Tanzania, an encephalopathy left Ruth with three weeks to live and the prognosis of a living in a group home after she failed to die. Not content with just surviving, Ruth completed a degree in psychology and left for Africa, this time, again inadvertently, landing an active conflict zone. She spent two years in Northern Uganda and witnessed the region transforming from a state of war to post-conflict society.

When listening to Ruth, in her characteristically understated manner, we might be fooled - for just a moment - to believe her story is anything other than extraordinary, because it is. She possesses a generosity of spirit, that leaves very little room for ego. There is also a joyfulness in her manner, and despite the sometimes-horrifying and traumatic experiences, Ruth delivers humour and hope.

We hope you enjoy episode one of Bearing Witness: The Backstory to the Creating Space Project

Guest host Sarah Down interviews the usual host of the Creating Space Project, psychologist Ruth Nelson.

Rachael Vincent talks about the emotional impact of the postal survey on same sex marriage, or marriage equality, in Australia.

It has been frightening and deeply upsetting for the GLBTQIA community to be confronted with people's level of fear and hatred.

"The license given to people to say things that would not normally be accepted."

Swastikas painted. People assaulted.

"This is a state-sanctioned homo-bashing festival."

For Rachael, a white woman quite a long way up the privilege ladder, it is an insight into what it is like to always have to fight for your rights and your identity.

Most of us aren't very good at changing our minds. Beliefs that we have held since childhood can be very resistant to change. If we have been raised to understand that marriage is between a man and a woman, we often believe that to be "natural" or the "way it should be."

This is especially true if we have been taught to link such a belief to our faith in God. It is easy, under those circumstances, to be swayed by fear and worry to say that change is wrong. It is easy to take on board the messages that children will be endangered, that society will be endangered, and to be closed to any evidence to the contrary.

Rachael Vincent talks, with great love, of the three very conservative Christian women who very strongly shaped her as she grew up: Her two grandmothers and her godmother. When they realised that she was homosexual, their belief that God is love and their faith in the power of love, transcended any prejudice that could have led them to reject Rachael.

It is, what she describes, as "the miracle of changing one's mind."

Rachael is hopeful that, over time, society will simply come to increasingly accept and welcome the queer community. Marriage equality, or same sex marriage, is simply another issue that modernity has brought to consciousness. As she says, "Gradually over time, just as the sea erodes a rock, we come to terms with these things."

Mary is Chinese Australian, born in Fiji during World War Two. Mary believes her life is blessed. She is 76, the mother of 7 children, the grandmother of 5 children.

Her Catholic faith strongly shapes the way that Mary sees the world. The three most important things in her life are loving God, your neighbour, and yourself.

To her, loving yourself is very important.

"I like this bit... We need to do the right thing by ourselves, look after ourselves."

Despite the strength of her Catholic religious beliefs, she also believes that all religions are essentially good,

"If we go back to their teachings, it is love God, love your neighbour as yourself."

She also acknowledges that Catholicism is far from perfect.

"A lot of harm has been done in the name of the church."

Mary feels it is important to accept people for who they are. She says that she tries to be accepting, especially as she herself is not perfect, although sometimes, she finds that hard.

Her deep faith in God leads her to have a basic trust in life, that things will work out for the best, even if that is not the way that we would have wanted. She loves life and hopes to be around for much longer, although she is not afraid of dying.

"Basically I think that's my life and I like to think I'm happy about it."

I interviewed Bern in her beautiful four-bedroom house, to the accompaniment of a budgie called Snowstripe. Like my home, it was strewn with toys and the walls were adorned with photos – a little child, loving parents.

We were a few days late getting to the interview. Bern's five-year-old child had been sick with the gastro bug going around Sydney. Bern works from home and had managed to squeeze me in between meetings on a warm spring morning.

So, a normal mother, busy with work and parenting, in a normal family. As Bern said,

"We have a 5-year-old child. Property, investments, insurances, wills, we have everything every other loving couple has. Apart from the right to have our relationship recognised by [Australian] law."

Bern volunteers with community organisations, including Park Run and Rainbow Families. She is warm, kind and welcoming. The values she learnt from her family of origin, in particular her father, are abundantly reflected in the life she leads: The importance of commitment to family, raising a child in a loving environment, treating others with respect and compassion, leading a life of integrity.

It makes it feel very strange to know that GLBTQIA families like Bern's are "on the receiving end of the negative feedback of this postal plebiscite debate, there's lots of hate and horrible things being said about ourselves and our family and members of our community."

When it comes to marriage equality, in the words of Bern's five-year-old, "Wouldn't it be a really nice world if everybody voted yes?"

Imagine a teacher from primary school remembering you vividly, fifty years later.

Sister Josephine Mitchell is a Josephite nun. A renowned champion of human rights and social justice, she is, among other roles, a former teacher, both in Australia and East Timor.

Educare, she says, means to grow. Teaching means helping young people to grow and realise their dreams. Providing education and being a small part of someone's life is, to her, a privilege.

Sr Josephine tells a story about a little boy that she taught 50 years ago, on the banks of the Richmond River, in northern NSW. It seems, to me, remarkable, that she remembers individual students from so long ago.

"I can remember that little kid and many many little kids like that."

"Most of the ones we dealt with in Timor really wanted to make something… they wanted to go further, but didn't have any way to do it."

The criteria for accepting children into the schools she taught in in East Timor were simple: The children couldn't afford to pay for an education. Sr Josephine is fiercely passionate about working to alleviate poverty and to respect human dignity.

"A human person who is inhibited because… they're not respected, they're being persecuted, oppressed, living in poverty - in such poor conditions they can't break out of that."

To her, such injustice is intolerable. She doesn't see it as helping though. There is a condescension to helping someone. It's about working towards freedom, and that is a mutual process.

"They can reflect back to me who I am. Sometimes I'm not the most desirable sort of person and they can let me know that things aren't going too well. They can affirm me. Their values, they can share with me, some things that I have not considered. Some of them overcome huge difficulties to keep developing. That's heroic, some of them have very big obstacles."

Sonia Muir is one of two women responsible for the Rural Women's Network, a government department in NSW, Australia.

Set up in the 1990s in response to the isolation experience by women during the drought, there is still a need today to facilitate the connections between rural women, reducing isolation, acknowledging their hard work, and developing their confidence and self-esteem.

This year is the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Network, and Sonia has been there for each of those years. She has met thousands of people in the course of her work. And each of them has meant something to her.

For Sonia, this is meaningful work. It has an impact on people's lives. It allows her to feel that the energy she expends is making a difference to someone. And, as she says, "When you give of yourself and you give of your community, that comes back to you tenfold."

"Through music you can express something that you can't express in words and that you maybe don't even know… it's a line to the soul"

Professional horn player, Carla Blackwood, performs Nocturno by Franz Strauss.

From listening together to this short piece of music, a conversation opens up about the importance of music. Food for the soul, music reveals to us something of what it is to be human. Music lets us engage with the abstract and the intangible and, especially in a modern society that encourages us to focus on what is tangible and material, this is more important than ever.

"There's more to being human than our conscious reality."

Carla also talks about how music exposes that very human struggle between striving for perfection and the acceptance that, actually, perfection can never be attained. It's a valuable life lesson, this notion of "listening kindly to yourself."

She reflects also on how music, memory and place become woven together and help form our identity. The importance of recognising your roots and where you are from, is one that is perhaps downplayed in Western cultures. But our "soul country" powerfully shapes the person we become.

Jill Asquith runs her own business in recruitment and employment.

She started from her bedroom, just looking to make an income. Within a couple of months, she moved from being a sole trader to being a company.

Two years later, her business works with a lot of big corporations. They have an Indigenous division where they focus on pre-employment and Indigenous participation.

Jill talks about the importance of creating opportunities, not just for herself, but for others too. She talks, as well, about how you deal with failure and stay focused on your dreams.

Jill's attitude provides fabulous insight into a growth mindset, and into the importance of hope and courage in pursuing challenges in life.

"I've just got this belief that it's going to happen and I've just got this hope that some way I will work out how it's going to go or how it's going to happen."