I first came to Australia in 2009, it was supposed to be temporary. I’d come from Venezuela to study English. The plan was simple: Learn to speak English, complete a degree, learn as much as I can, and go home.
But the longer I was here in Australia, the more I realised that the world I left behind – my family, my culture, my country – was not the one I could return to.
Economic hyperinflation, worsening food shortages, and political instability fueled by oil, greed, and corruption, transformed Venezuela into a place I no longer recognised. While I was adjusting to a new country, my family was struggling to buy basic food, waiting hours and hours to get a few staples in the supermarket. Pretty much everything about their life was about the logistics on how to get food. From a distance I was bearing witness to my country’s collapse.
It was then that I found myself drawn to the concept of food sovereignty while I was in my first years of my bachelor degree here. It resonated. I started to see how food systems, just like the ones failing back home, are at the centre of so many of our global challenges. I saw how these systems affect everything: community wellbeing, health, climate, and social justice. I’d always been interested in plants. My early studies in biology gave me a foundation, but food growing became something else: it became a common language I could use to connect with others, with the land and with purpose.
As I deepened my understanding of the economic system and its impact on both the natural environment and society, I stumbled upon a concept outside of my formal studies that felt like the missing piece in a complex puzzle: Permaculture. It offered me a whole new way of seeing the world, through a lens of interconnectedness, integration, and, most importantly, solutions. Rooted in the core ethics of Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share, permaculture introduced me to food-growing systems designed to sustain and support all forms of life.
Inspired, I began volunteering at my local community garden, eager to keep learning and to connect with others who shared a passion for growing food and building resilience. At the same time, I was working in academic administration at a university: a job that helped me support my family back in Venezuela and build a life here. While I was grateful for the stability it provided, I often found myself struggling to stay motivated in work that felt disconnected from my passion.
Still, I found small but meaningful ways to bring environmental care into my everyday work. Sometimes that meant connecting with people on a human level, through stories, empathy, and shared values. Other times, it meant trying to align existing university policies or strategies with real, tangible action. Moving between these two ways of engaging – emotional connection and institutional structure – led to unexpected projects: a new community garden on campus, collaborative initiatives, and perhaps most meaningfully, a vibrant community of practice made up of people committed to “walking the talk,” putting into action what was being taught in classrooms and explored through research. The garden became a shared space where titles and roles mattered less than the desire to learn, grow, and build something together.
Slowly over that time, I made a choice: to follow work that aligned with my values, even if it came with uncertainty. After years of working at university in roles that felt disconnected from what really mattered to me, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to work in projects that supported sustainability, equity, and care.
In early 2021, my ex-partner and I moved to Melbourne, drawn by new working opportunities which in my case was within the urban food movement. But just after we arrived, we received some devastating news: my mum had passed away. COVID was tearing through Venezuela, and with a healthcare system already in collapse, It was definitely not a good place to get contracted . I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t say goodbye. I was overwhelmed by grief, a stranger in a new city, and unsure what would come next. I stayed in that grief for months.
Then one day, in the local library, a poster caught my eye: Community Skills for Climate Action. A program run jointly by Darebin, Merri-bek, and Yarra councils. I wasn’t looking for anything. I wasn’t thinking about joining a program. But something about it resonated, like a tap on the shoulder. The closing date had passed but I emailed anyway, expecting nothing. But that decision changed everything.
I remember the first day of the program clearly. A large group of about 80 people gathered in a room. One of the facilitators, Matt Wicking, played a song on his guitar, and I felt something drop inside me. I didn’t know anyone’s name, but there was warmth in the room. There was heart.
At that moment I realised: “I’m in the right place”. That day marked a turning point, not because it fixed anything, but because it gave me somewhere to begin again.
I learned many things through the program, but more importantly, I met many people. Some of whom are now friends and close collaborators. For me, the program was a way to find grounding after loss, a space to rebuild connection. It was a way to grow new roots.
Almost parallel to this program, I started working at the Reynard Street Community Garden. I remember the day I started, the exact day Melbourne entered into the longest lockdown in 2021. Regardless of the lockdown, we continue to connect online, learn and distill ideas. It was then, the community group formed in the Community Skills for Climate Action and myself started a project called Grow Eat Together as a way to reactivate the community garden space with the support of Donna Luckman from Zero Carbon Merri-Bek. The space had been underused for some time, but it had potential. We wanted to bring people into the garden, not just to grow food, but to connect, especially Culturally And Linguistically Diverse people or groups. Food became our shared language and pathway for climate action. We ran seasonal events like spring and autumn festivals, inviting people from the community to share food, conversation, and ideas.
During the Grow Eat Together, I was encouraged to apply for the WELA National Leadership Program, a step I hadn’t anticipated, but one that proved transformative. I longed to connect with women who cared deeply for the Earth and were committed to systemic change grounded in reciprocity. WELA gave me that—and more.
In WELA, I experienced strength and vulnerability, unlearning and relearning, all held within an intentional, sacred space. The program wasn’t just professional development—it was a rite of passage. Still in grief after my mum’s passing and with a lot of changes happening, I hadn’t yet been able to farewell my mum. And yet, surrounded by this group of women, this sisterhood, I was invited to honour her and my grandmother, and for the first time, I grieved in community held by others.
During that year, I also experienced the early stages of pregnancy, a miscarriage, and the end of a significant relationship. WELA became a container for all of it: for loss, transformation, and purpose. It allowed me to understand that leadership isn’t always about strategy or visibility—it can also be about softness, grief, intuition, and listening deeply to the Earth. In this space I gave myself permission to lead in my own way.
When I think about climate action, I don’t only think about policies or technologies only. I think about gardens. Growing food taught me that climate action doesn’t have to be loud to be meaningful. Sometimes it looks like showing up. Connecting to your neighbours. Planting a seed. Sharing a meal.. Finding new roots, even after losing others. In the face of climate change, these are acts of revolution, resistance, and hope. As I tend the soil, I also tend to myself.
That hasn’t been an easy path. The community sector is deeply underfunded and under-resourced, and the work is demanding. I worry about stability, about the future. But there’s also a different kind of wealth in this work: relationships, creativity, shared purpose.
I’m currently studying Relational Gestalt Therapy and participating in a program called the Four Seasons Journey, both supporting me in a deep self-enquiry as well as resourcing myself to support individuals and groups to reconnect with self, community and the non-human beings that we so much depend on. This path was inspired by the last four years of working in community and local environmental initiatives and my own personal journey with grief. Now, I’m deepening my connection to myself as a woman and reconnecting with feminine ancestral wisdom, by bringing that insight and presence into how I care for people, the Earth, and all living beings.
My story is still unfolding. There’s no neat ending. I still miss my family from Venezuela, a life that felt deeply rooted in the community. I still grieve for the future I imagined with my mum in it and with a family with kids. But I’m here, continuing to grow new roots. Choosing purpose over comfort. Choosing community over isolation. Choosing to believe that small acts, like noticing a poster in a library, can shift everything.