Cooks River Water Wise
The Cooks River Alliance and the ECCNSW held activities, workshops, and events for culturally diverse communities in the Cooks River Catchment to promote environmental conservation.
Arabic, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Nepalese communities participated in a clean-up day at a local park, planted trees, went on a bus tour and explored the catchmentโs bushland, and learnt about how we can all be water wise creating a healthier catchment. Six videos were made in-language to educate the community more broadly.
The first Water Wise workshop was displayed in the exhibition โPeople.Water.Connectionsโ at Bankstown Art Centre. This exhibition celebrated connections to water and rivers and acknowledged culturally diverse practices of water management and conservation.
The Impact
What we got from the outing today is that we can appreciate the beauty of nature.
Iโve learned that all the rubbish that goes into the drainage system will end up in the river.
The Cooks River catchment area is characterised by diverse ethnic backgrounds with more than 50% of households speaking a language other than English at home.
After holding 15 workshops and 5 field trips, participants in the program had a better understanding of sustainable urban water values, behaviours and actions.
In total, six language groups were supported, and participants were able to explore, discover and appreciate the Cooks River and become more knowledgeable about how their actions at home and in the garden that can contribute to river health.
