Climate cash for sustainability festival

THE Bendigo Sustainability Group has received nearly twenty thousand dollars in funding for its festival in March, entitled Many Hands.

The organisation is one of six in Victoria to share in $179,950 from the Foundation for Rural Regional Renewal (FRRR), receiving $19,900.

A total of 27 initiatives aimed at empowering rural communities around Australia to adopt practices and solutions that reduce emissions and address the impacts of climate change are sharing in $685,242.

The FRRR’s Community Led Climate Solutions program offers grants in two streams, with different grant funding.

It allows not-for-profit organisations (NFPs) to prioritise local needs and address factors affecting their communities’ ability and capacity to adopt new ideas, adapt to a changing climate, and take actions to mitigate risks of climate change.

FRRR climate solutions portfolio lead Sarah Matthee said the Community Led Climate Solutions program emphasises the importance of empowering local people to lead local climate solutions.

“Local NFPs and community organisations want to play a bigger role in creating sustainable and enduring climate solutions for their communities,” Ms Matthee said.

“This program responds to that need, which is why it continues to attract more and more applications.

“The intent is to empower and enable communities to lead change by innovating and responding to local opportunities and challenges.”

Ms Matthee said the funded projects showcase a diverse range of future-focused, community-led climate solutions including addressing energy supply, reuse and recycling, distributing knowledge and climate risk adaptation.

“This diversity reinforces the fact that each community’s experience of the social, economic and environmental impacts of a changing climate is unique,” she said.

“So too are the ways that communities want to respond to those circumstances. For example, more than half the projects funded in this round are designed to develop awareness, knowledge and skills.

“This perhaps also reflects that community groups are at different points in their journey, and each application reflected this.”

The Many Hands: Bendigo Sustainability Festival is scheduled for Sunday 30 March at the Garden for the Future in White Hills.