Bega Valley not-for-profits get boost in leadership capacity ahead of bushfire season

The graduation ceremony for the Regenerate Bega Valley leadership development program hosted at Seahorse Inn on October 11 featured a very "melodic" end, with participants getting up to share their takeaways of the experience in song.

Program manager, Carolyn Ardler, said participants had really engaged as a group, with many forming a strong bond between themselves as a result of the eight day program.

"You could see through the conversations at the graduation that they had gained this beautiful insight into themselves and those around them," she said.

The Regenerate Bega Valley leadership program was part of the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal's Investing in Rural Community Futures (IRCF) program that aimed to build confidence, ability, skills and longer-term sustainability of the region's Not for Profit Organisations in bushfire impacted regions in NSW.

Ms Ardler said the program had been about bringing together individuals from various not for profits and getting them to start brainstorming ideas together, facilitate conversations on issues and look at solving them together rather than deferring to an authority.

"It was quite a diverse group with members coming from a range of organisations and backgrounds and that just helped them in building those connections," she said.

Ms Ardler said the program had given participants the chance to bring some of their own ideas to the table and look at how to activate them - with some of the polished ideas then being pitched at the graduation ceremony.

"They stood up and spoke about several ideas they'd like to take forward, including supporting women in being more involved in governance and boards, exploring telecommunication issues, energy needs and the issues around housing," she said.

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Ms Ardler said another lovely part of the graduation ceremony had been seeing certain members share their personal experiences.

"It was lovely hearing one of the participants share her personal growth, how the connections she'd made had helped and how she now sees herself as a leader which was wonderful to hear," she said.

Ms Ardler said the takeaway from such a program was that participants had built a network that they could collaborate with or lean on in future.

"I think those types of bonds are what you need in that recovery space, so that if anything happens again, you have these other leaders in the community that you can reach out to and go to for many different reasons," she said.

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Ms Ardler said she was delighted to see the program had been successful and was especially happy to see participants views of themselves being shifted into considering themselves as leaders.

"I feel like the space we provided helped them identify their strengths and amplify them and that was quite incredible," she said.

The Regenerate Bega Valley leadership development program was delivered over two residential sessions of four days each, the first session starting at Kianinny Bush Cottages in Tathra and the last session finishing at Seahorse Inn.

The IRCF Bega Valley Resilience, Connection and Place project which brought about the Regenerate leadership program was funded by the Australian Government's Black Summer Bushfire Recovery grants program.

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