Community Matters

Every year, 1.7 million tonnes of food are wasted in NSW, the equivalent of 68 Olympic-size swimming pools. Meanwhile, 38% of households in the Illawarra Shoalhaven region are struggling to get enough to eat, with children going to school hungry and parents heading to work on an empty stomach. In this episode, Nicky Sloan speaks with Melinda Lawton, Project Manager at Healthy Cities Australia, about a practical plan to close that gap. Australia produces enough food to feed its people, yet it ...

In this episode, Nicky sits down with Kylie Flament, the CEO of SECNA (Social Enterprises Coordinating Council of NSW & ACT), the peak body supporting social enterprises across NSW and the ACT. Kylie has a memorable way of explaining what a social enterprise is: "If a business and a charity had a baby, that's a social enterprise… they exist specifically to make the world a better place." We learn that social enterprises contribute as much to the economy each year as the mining sector, and...

Menopause affects 51% of the population directly (and 100% of us indirectly) so it’s a topic we really need to get better at talking about. In this episode, Nicky does just that as she sits down with Georgia Watson, Menopause Service Coordinator for the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, for a frank, refreshingly practical conversation about what menopause actually looks like, and the specialist support available for women navigating it. The numbers are eye-opening. While the average...

Older women are now the fastest-growing group experiencing homelessness in Australia, and record numbers are being pushed into crisis by eviction from long term rentals and then being unable to afford rapidly rising rents. In this powerful episode of Community Matters, host Nicky Sloan sits down with Sabrina Hissey, Acting Operations Manager of ROCC for Women, a Specialist Homelessness Service delivering case management to women who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness in the Ill...

In this episode of Community Matters, CEO of Warrigal, Jenni Hutchins, joins Nicky Sloan for a powerful conversation about leadership, workplace culture and how the way we treat our employees has a direct impact on the people they care for. Jenni shares the remarkable story behind Warrigal achieving a 100% employee engagement survey response rate across more than 2,500 staff, breaking Australian records and proving that when people genuinely believe their voices matter, extraordinary th...