In this episode of Sense-making in a Changing World, I speak with, Mariam Issa, story-teller, author, speaker, community gardener, community-builder, human rights activist and  ambassador for the Refugee Council of Australia.

A few years ago I met Mariam at an Australasian Permaculture Conference where she was a keynote speaker. We've been dear friends ever since. She has come to stay with me here in the ecovillage and I have visited her at the RAW Garden - a community garden in her suburban backyard in Melbourne.

Mariam arrived in Australia as a refugee over 20 years ago from Somalia, via Kenya. We speak together in the middle of Refugee Week here in Australia 14-20 June.

Mariam talks of how, through permaculture she found a way to belong in her new home, to connect, to contribute and help others. In her backyard, Mariam created a community garden where people come to grow, harvest and share delicious lovingly-prepared food right there in the garden. There are regular cooking classes led by people from all different cultures, regular gardening days and story-telling circles.

Her inspirational way of storytelling uplifts and transforms. She awakens the storyteller in each of us, and shows how, through connecting this way, we are able to make sense.

Links to Mariam's work

A Resilient Life  is Mariam’s book about her refugee journey from Somalia to Australia. 

Mariam and I also have chapters in the book Reclaiming the Urban Commons

Mariam is featured here in Dumbo Feather

Watch this clip about Mariam's Garden

Transcript
Check the transcript tab

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MORAG GAMBLE

Founder, Permaculture Education Institute

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I am a possibilitarian and I believe in HumanKINDness.

In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?

This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. 

This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara and Gubbi Gubbi country.

If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.