Telling a Better Story
Our customers of the week, Kim and her daughter, tell us about their lives and give us some thoughts on why Addi Road Food Pantry is such a beautiful place to visit.
Our customers of the week, Kim and her daughter, tell us about their lives and give us some thoughts on why Addi Road Food Pantry is such a beautiful place to visit.
A new report from Food Bank Australia reveals that 3.7 million households (36%) experienced moderate to severe food insecurity in the last year. The report also reveals that almost half of Australia’s population is feeling anxious about being able to consistently afford or access adequate food.
Carlos isn’t here anymore. We miss him and we remember him. It’s a terribly sad thing when someone dies. Partly because they have never entirely left us. The larger their lives, the longer they live on through our memories and all they have done for us. Carlos Femenias was one of those giants in the heart. And Addi Road acknowledges his passing as something very significant and important today.
Noel Pearson visited Addi Road with Amar Singh and Michael O’Loughlin to speak about The Voice. You can read about the inspiring day here.
Fragments and tears; big feelings in each silence that falls between the words. Maria Fotiadis has had a long history with Addi Road, going back to the early 1970s when the Greek community began gathering here in Marrickville, bringing to life what would be formally established as the Addison Road Community Centre in 1976. She remembers the other communities that allied with them, the Turkish and Yugoslav and Italian people in particular, the nights they’d organise to sing, play music and dance and celebrate each nation’s unique culture and history…
Last night we gathered together again as one when our film ‘Die. Or Die Trying: Escaping the Taliban’ won a NSW Premier’s Multicultural Communications Award. Our successful nomination was in the Public Interest Award’s category for “outstanding public interest journalism upholding the NSW Multicultural Principles”.
‘Here Comes the Night’ sings out over the road out front of the Addi Road Food Pantry in Marrickville. A low-flying plane is coming in to land, adding to the Inner West soundtrack. The old Them song is a 1960s classic, with Van Morrison’s voice exultant and oddly melancholy, as if all of us somehow got lost in an old radio for a little while.
Food on the table restores pride, provides a breathing space for families and individuals alike to keep going while under pressure. It’s a matter integral to self-respect, offering a breathing space as incomes are sucked into rising rents and cost-of-living pressures that negate people’s ability to feed themselves. Mental health, relationships, emotional stamina, children’s levels of anxiety, the room to innovate in some small way and climb out of your difficulties is shot to pieces if you can’t afford enough food to get by each day.
Tune in to Dr Tanya Paterson explaining how Tradeswomen Australia and Addi Road are combining forces to inspire and help women to consider the possibility of becoming tradespeople and apprentices. She speaks here with Kate Saap of FBi Radio’s morning program ‘Up For It!’