Does activism always have to be so serious? Nup, says Emma-Kate Rose. Lighten up and let your hair down, let’s face our collective challenges in lycra!
It was fitting that Emma-Kate was on her way to No Lights No Lycra as we recorded this convo, because her radical approach to balancing work and play is probably the most refreshing thing you’ll hear all day.
After quitting her career in criminology inspired by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Emma-Kate went on to crowdfund $2 million for Brissy Food Connect’s community hub with partner Rob Pekin. Impressive stuff. She’s also a mother, social entrepreneur, community builder, risk taker, intuition-follower, and big fan of ‘sticking to your knitting’.
Emma-Kate shares her transition from avid consumer to climate activist, unexpected ways to mobilise community, how indigenous epistemology infuses Food Connect, creating careholders not shareholders, bleeding days, part time work and food sovereignty. Look, it's a pretty frivolous conversation ;)
Get snacks and press play on the wonderful Emma-Kate Rose!
SHOW NOTES
- An urban start in Sydney
- The cycle of boom and bust in her own childhood home led to questioning “why people do bad things”.
- Her career in criminology before taking on the food system
- Being hit with the “tonne of bricks that is climate change”.
- Starting a local climate action group
- Starting a car sharing business
- Selling the cars and putting the family on public transport and bicycles.
- Encouraging various economies to embrace de-carbonisation.
- Accidentally crowd funding $2 million to keep the wheels of Brisbane Food Connect turning and in the hands of community ownership.
- Manifesting intentions and creating visions despite having no money and no idea how.
- Questioning enough to move the needle rather than settling for business as usual solutions.
- Food Connect as a social enterprise that provides a platform for multiple values aligned businesses a chance to incubate into a supported environment.
- Offering office space to social entrepreneurs who need affordable access to office space.
- Incorporating indigenous epistemology into their business
- Creating careholders not share holders
- Fun over ideology
- Why we're ready to have a national conversation about embracing Indigenous culture
- Reassessing our sense of time and urgency -- “Act now is required but do we do that at the expense of our relationships with our fellow human beings?"
- Walking the talk and building a life that really honours a balanced life: work, community contribution, joy.
- Whats a bleeding day?
- Escaping the trap of being earnest in your activism
- Making the most of bringing people together while we can
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