Celebrating International Women’s Day – Kaylene Reeves
Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, the Geelong Community Foundation is shining a light on some of the incredible women who are driving change and making a difference in the community sector, with women making up around 81% of the community sector workforce in Victoria.
Meet Kaylene Reeves, co-managing director of Norlane Community Initiatives
Norlane Community Initiatives runs community hubs, that we call neighbourhood commons, throughout Norlane, focused on building community connections and addressing common needs.
At the moment this means that a lot of our community programs have a food security focus and currently a lot of my time is spent managing our Robin Ave commons which includes running a social enterprise café, whole foods cooperative, community garden, fruit and veg cooperative, a community meal as well as craft groups and conversation tables.
Can you share your organisation vision, mission and purpose?
The Vision of Norlane Community Initiatives is to build a localised movement of neighbours working, living and co-creating a thriving neighbourhood.
We do this through activating:
- People – By building a network of relationships and creating spaces for belonging, we are enhancing social capital, investing in people’s strengths and skills and helping our community build resilience. Fundamentally, our work is focused on building a network of trusted relationships that can be catalysed for positive social outcomes across our neighbourhood.
- Places – Across our community, there are spaces that play an important role in helping people in our community connect with each other and access vital services. Because of this, we seek to invest in these spaces and activate them so that they benefit the needs of the people who live here.
- Projects – Working alongside people in our community, we seek to design and implement projects, enterprises and initiatives which address locally identified challenges and opportunities.
What is the most significant highlight of your time in the role?
A highlight for me has been setting up a social enterprise café which has been a long-time dream of mine. I love cooking food and sharing that with others and being able to build a space for our community to come together over food is something I have definitely enjoyed, but making healthy food more accessible to the neighbourhood is an added bonus.
I have also loved seeing people from the community take ownership of the café and add to the space through running groups, volunteering and selling their homemade wares. The hospitality industry has had a rough few years, yet we have managed to pull through as a new social enterprise through all the challenges of COVID, changing our business model to offer a dinner delivery service to the community, and managing to also keep all of our staff employed and see two trainees through their qualifications.
What is your hope for the future of your organisation, and the wider Geelong Community?
As an organisation as a whole our dreams are quite ambitious: we would love to see a thriving, connected and sustainable neighbourhood, where people take pride in where they live, contribute to their neighbourhood and feel that the whole of their lives are enriched through their experience of community here.
For me personally, I would love to continue to find ways to work together to find sustainable solutions to food security as well as to help people achieve wholistic health and wellness in this neighbourhood.
Do you have any advice for other/younger women, wither in general or with regards to working in the community/NFP Sector?
I feel very lucky to be working the in the community sector in Geelong, as I am surrounded by women who lead NFP’s. My biggest piece of advice would be to chat with these women, learn from them
