Sally O’Neill introduced guest speaker Diane Grady, AO.
Diane has a very impressive resume and she spoke on the topic of The Hunger Project Australia for which she is the Chairperson. She is also on the Board of Directors of Macquarie Group and Tennis Australia as well as being on the Advisory Board of Head Over Heels, a group that supports women entrepreneurs. She has been a long-time advocate of enabling leadership opportunities for women.
Changing the mindset
Diane talked about the “mindset shift” which is at the heart of The Hunger Project’s programs. The Project’s vision, commitment and action workshops help communities envision a future of their own making. She said they believe that every person has a right to be the author of his or her own development. Their workshops serve to inspire individuals to move from “I can’t” to “I can” to “We can”.
Diane asked us to imagine growing up in a village, living in hunger and poverty. It’s all you have ever known. It’s like that now and it has always been like that. The future looks like an extension of the past. Interrupting that way of thinking and showing what the future could look like is the silver bullet to what The Hunger Project (THP) does.
“The Hunger Project is about helping individuals to shift into a mindset that says they can actually solve their own hunger… The first thing you have to do is get an individual to shift their behaviour, and if you get enough individuals to shift their behaviours then the entire village will change.” – Michael Rennie, Global Leader – Organisational Practice, McKinsey & Co.
Epicentre Strategy
Diane spoke of THP’s Epicentre Strategy in Africa whereby a village or a cluster of villages is inspired to act to meet their own basic needs. They organise facilitators to work with villages to identify their needs and create their own opportunities to achieve them. The villages can be supported by THP for up to 10 years.
Diane told us individual stories of how couples had become self-sufficient by changing their mindset; and how one village changed its mindset and started a medical centre. Others grouped together to have solar lighting and latrines installed. Another village, after a period of 5 years, no longer needed THP’s assistance and was even producing merchandise for sale to other villages in the district. Yet another village’s empowerment strategy was to build a community hall and start a bank.
Diane talked about returning to poverty stricken villages in Malawi after a few years of guidance from THP to find them transformed.
Enabling individuals and villages to solve their own problems empowers them to transform from waiting for handouts to creating opportunities to feed and care for their families and communities in a sustainable way.
The Hunger Project has 123 epicentres across eight African countries and has reached 1.8 million people with their unique epicentre strategy.
Sally O’Neill thanked Diane for such an informative and interesting talk and there were many questions from the members.
Ros Virtue
